Media 7 | August 3, 2023
Vladimer Botsvadze is a globally recognized digital transformation and social media influencer. With over 15 years of international marketing and innovation experience, he has successfully guided executives and top brands worldwide to drive growth and become market leaders. Read on to know his thoughts about the importance of upskilling and reskilling individuals with AI/ML talent....
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Media 7 | July 7, 2022
In this interview with Anirudh Sharma, Marketing Director at Trantor, we had the opportunity to explore how the marketing landscape has evolved. Read on to learn more about the importance of market attribution, audience building, specialized marketing, conversion funnel optimization, and more....
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Media 7 | March 14, 2022
Design thinking is one of the best strategies for product innovation because of its problem-solving approach specific to design. In this interview with Media 7, Holly Camponez, Director of Creative Services at Avenue Code, shares a few insights into creating end-to-end development solutions with the right approach towards design. Read on to find out how to spearhead digital transformations with design thinking....
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Media 7 | March 9, 2022
Jerzy Biernacki, Head of Innovation & Business Development at Miquido, takes us through the many advantages of AI and ML to businesses. Read on to find out how enterprises can leverage exciting technology trends to help their businesses grow....
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Media 7 | February 21, 2022
Marketing strategies have evolved with changing digital expectations of consumers and we had the opportunity to explore some of the biggest shifts in the domain through an interview with Patrick Ward, Vice President of Marketing at Rootstrap. Read on to find out some of the best practices that marketers can adopt to gain a competitive edge in the market today....
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Media 7 | February 8, 2022
Manuj Aggarwal, Founder at TetraNoodle Technologies, takes us through the potential of AI and big data of becoming a complete game-changer for businesses today. Read on to find out how businesses can leverage these technological innovations to fuel their growth....
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Media 7 | February 4, 2022
Sunniya Saleem Hamid, Senior Director, Marketing - Demand Center and Digital Experience at QuickBase walks us through their No Code/Low Code platform and talks about its future. Read on to know more about her thoughts on inbound and outbound marketing and the effect of rising digital technologies on the workforce....
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Media 7 | January 25, 2022
Kristin Fornal, Head of Marketing at IAM Robotics sheds light on the inner workings of IAM Robotics, one of the leading warehouse automation companies. Read on to know more about her thoughts on the future of automation in the robotics industry, its challenges, and its benefits....
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Media 7 | January 11, 2022
We had the opportunity to learn about Orange's mission of becoming net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 through this interview with Hervé Suquet, VP Energy Group at Orange. Read on to find out Orange's key objectives towards sustainability and their AI-powered analytics and monitoring tools to help businesses drive change towards increased sustainability....
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Media 7 | December 10, 2021
Jonathan Slater, Managing Director at Blue Globe Innovation elaborates on the service ‘Solver Scouting’: an exclusive intellectual property only found within Blue Globe. Read on to know how Blue Globe Innovation is dedicated to solving technical, system, and data challenges around the world....
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Media 7 | December 3, 2021
Ritu Jyoti, Group Vice President, AI and Automation at IDC elaborates on the ‘Gradual and Sudden’ adoption of smart technologies like AI in recent years and the importance of leveraging them to improve business agility and much more in this in depth interview....
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Media 7 | December 2, 2021
Akhil Gopinath, Vice President – Retention, Growth & Product Strategy at Gartner takes us through his exemplary professional journey and speaks about the growth of the world's leading IT advisory and research firm: Gartner. Read on to know his insightful thoughts on tools and techniques regarding the growth and product strategy and how he approaches challenging times....
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Media 7 | November 23, 2021
Ronita Bhattacharjee, Vice President, META Region, Conferences at IDC in this insightful conversation shares with us the vision, mission and principles which IDC stands for. She also throws light on the importance of market research, and the varied changes, and challenges of marketing resulting from digitalization. Read on to find out about the most-awaited IDC Middle East CIO Summit 2022....
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Media 7 | November 2, 2021
We had the opportunity to speak to Nicholas McQuire, the former Chief of Research at CCS Insight, as he embarks on his new journey as the Director of AI and Innovation at Microsoft. Read on to find out how companies can leverage a market that's undergoing constant digitization by embracing change and banking heavily on data....
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Media 7 | November 1, 2021
Anamika Gupta, Director, Head of Customer Marketing at Fujitsu Americas, talks about her professional journey, FujitsuActivateNow 2021 and her Dallas Business Journal award. In this interview we get a valuable insight from Anamika into content marketing practices, impact of AI on ABM landscape and her advice for young marketers....
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Media 7 | October 28, 2021
Spencer Lentz, Director of Premier Accounts at Pegasystems, gives us an insight into Pegasystems’ unique AI Platform, shares his thoughts on challenges faced by the marketing industry and why it is important to embrace technology....
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Media 7 | October 11, 2021
Francisco Jeronimo, Associate Vice President, Devices at IDC, leads a bright award-winning team of 30 research analysts across 10 countries in Europe looking into the trends on Personal Computing Devices, Monitors, Mobile Devices, Wearables, AR&VR, Smart Home and disruptive technologies. He was ranked the World's Top #25 Influencer in Digital Transformation in 2018, and the world's #56 Influencer on Artificial Intelligence in 2017, by Onalytica.
Francisco is a regular commentator on trends in mobile telecommunications in leading industry and business publications, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Reuters, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Guardian, BBC, CNET, along with European press....
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Media 7 | September 20, 2021
Atul Totre, WW Director, Cross-Industry Strategy & Digital ISV Partners GTM at Microsoft Corp, is a results-driven leader with a “get-it-done” attitude and a penchant for delivering integrated and connected experiences that solve key business problems with innovative solutions. He has a 20-year track record of leveraging technology to drive business value and outcomes. As a business-technology leader focused on Digital Transformation through Cloud, Big Data, Analytics and AI, he leads cross-functional teams to help customers successfully become Digital Businesses. He believes in “impact through influence” and focuses on delivering end-user experiences for customers and employees. He has demonstrated leadership experience and skills for business development, pre-sales, advisory services, CxO-level conversations and creating/delivering large programs of change....
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Media 7 | August 26, 2021
Bibhakar Pandey, Vice President & Leader of Customer Experience, Marketing Services at Capgemini, is a dynamic leader with more than 25 years of industry experience leading global, multi-cultural experience teams across North America, Europe, and APAC. Bibhakar has built a career on achieving year-on-year success in driving business-growth objectives and empowering organizations to address challenging business needs through the application of cloud, mobile, content, commerce, analytics, and social technologies. He has built teams with lean and agile cultures and employed new and emerging digital technologies. He has been an enterprising leader, mentor, and coach, driving continuous performance excellence within his team. He has successfully incubated and scaled businesses including marketing services and interactive and digital engineering....
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Media 7 | August 25, 2021
Amitabh Ramani, Global Marketing Director at Jade Global, is leading strategic marketing initiatives to drive change through a mix of innovative technology, story-telling, nuanced with an enriched understanding of B2B consumer behaviour. He is a multi-disciplinary strategic marketer with experience straddling consumer goods (B2C) and technology (B2B) industries in domestic (India) and global markets. He has strong experience in brand management, business development, and multi-channel marketing. He is skilled in creative breakthroughs, thought leadership content development, campaign management, digital / community leverage, and frugal / outcome-based marketing & coding. He is exposed to working with and mentoring multicultural teams and experienced in new emerging technologies for Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, BOTS, and more....
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Media 7 | August 5, 2021
Ernest Chan, Founder at PredictNow.ai, is also the Managing Member of QTS Capital Management, LLC., a commodity pool operator and trading advisor. QTS manages a hedge fund as well as individual accounts. More information about his services can be found at predictnow.ai and www.qtscm.com. He is the author of "Quantitative Trading: How to Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business", "Algorithmic Trading: Winning Strategies and Their Rationale", and "Machine Trading", all published by John Wiley & Sons. He maintains a popular blog "Quantitative Trading" at epchan.blogspot.com. He is an adjunct faculty at Northwestern University's Master's in Data Science program. His courses and publications on finance and machine learning can be found at www.epchan.com....
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Media 7 | July 29, 2021
Aaron Pang, Associate Director, Business Transformation at EY, created his first e-commerce business and online marketing business at age 21 and achieved over one million US revenue in the first year. In 2015, he led the home market of a global successful logistic-tech venture, Lalamove. After that, he went on to lead a three-year transformational program for a global accounting body Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA). He is the creator and host of the Transformative Purpose podcast, author of two books Reborn Digital and The Asian Dad....
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Media 7 | May 28, 2021
Bethany Fagan, Senior Manager, Content Marketing at PandaDoc, is a content marketing professional with 10+ years of experience in storytelling, written content, digital content, events, webinars, social media, and sales enablement....
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Media 7 | May 28, 2021
Doron Youngerwood, VP Marketing at Continuity Software, is a result-driven tech marketing leader with a successful track record of managing & growing marketing teams, along with in-depth knowledge and proven success in the main pillars of marketing: go-to-market strategies, demand-gen, digital and brand....
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Media 7 | May 5, 2021
Andrew Gori, Senior Director of Content Marketing at Zendesk, has worked as a content creator for more than 15 years, for a variety of industries including technology, social media, travel, and arts. He enjoys all aspects of the field, be it writing a single blog post, building a corporate voice and tone guide, overseeing the overhaul of a company's content infrastructure, or managing large-scale campaigns....
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Media 7 | February 3, 2021
Irshad Raihan, Director of Product Marketing at Red Hat, comes with an experience of more than 20 years. Previously, he has been associated with companies like IBM and Hewlett Packard for Big Data and Data Management products....
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Media 7 | January 29, 2021
Ginger Shimp, Senior Marketing Director at SAP, is an award-winning marketer with 25+ years’ B2B experience. Since 2004, she has helped companies in myriad industries run better by telling, not only the SAP story but the stories of her customers and their customers. Developing content, engaging channels, deploying tactics to educate, stimulate interest and drive demand: Marketing isn’t just what she does, but defines who she is!
MEDIA 7: You have been associated with SAP for more than 17 years. How has the journey been like?
GINGER SHIMP: I love where I work. SAP employs some of the most phenomenal marketers, and the opportunity to work with them on a daily basis is energizing and inspiring.
When we’re young and just beginning our careers, it can be soul-crushing to hear a potential supervisor say we’re not a good “fit”. We don’t fully appreciate the implication of that sentiment. But as we mature and have the experience working in a variety of roles for myriad employers, we realize how crucial “fit” is.
We spend one-third of our lives, one-half of our waking hours, five days per week at work. It’s very important that we like where we work. I have learned to approach my work with a philosophy that I want others to want to work with me. Of course, I don’t get this right 100% of the time, but it’s what I aim for. Even if I don’t care for them personally or really dislike working with them, I try to keep in mind that I don’t want them to have that impression of me.
Fortunately, at SAP, those times are extremely rare. Our people, our culture, and of course our customers, are simply extraordinary. I believe in our products and services. I have faith in, and respect for, and admiration for our customers. At SAP, we don’t just sell software, we improve people’s lives. SAP customers represent 98% of the top 100 most valued brands in the world. Did you know that SAP customers:
-produce more than 78% of the world’s food, more than 85% of the world’s pet food, and more than 62% of the world’s movies;
-represent 100% of the world’s top 20 greenest automotive companies and 100% of the world’s top 15 greenest IT software and services providers;
-distribute more than 76% of the world’s healthcare products?
That’s an awesome responsibility, a humbling privilege, and one heck of an exciting journey. I love my job!
M7: In all these years, what are some of the most effective marketing strategies that you have put in place, which have helped you to drive revenue?
GS: Definitely an integrated strategy will win out over a random act of marketing every time. That’s not to say we shouldn’t experiment with tactics. For example, I worked with a colleague, Jeff Janiszewski, several years ago to develop an audio drama called Searching for Salaì as a means of using real storytelling techniques to gain the attention of a business audience who perhaps hadn’t really paid attention to SAP previously. We had tremendous success with that.
So last year another colleague, Julie Stoughton, and I asked ourselves how we could use that tactic and build upon the prior success. What we wound up with was another audio drama but one that had even more business structure to it, The Retrofuturist Chronicles. Listeners who enjoy the show head over to our landing site — www.inspirethefuture.com — and read the blogs, which not only continue the experience but also build an elegant bridge to SAP products and solutions. They get immersed with everything from animated videos that talk about business pains through the eyes of a child to in-depth white papers. My colleague Aswin Mannepalli did a masterful job concepting and scripting the 30-second videos which allow visitors to determine which business pains are a fit for them. (There’s that word “fit” again.) In fact, the whole team has poured their hearts and souls into the effort, which all began with one of our VP’s, Michelle Schooff, thinking about how her little nephews approached the pandemic versus the messages that were flooding our inboxes. I love how we were able to take previous tactics that had worked well, experiment with new ideas, and blend them all to create a solidly integrated and extraordinarily compelling campaign.
We launched this campaign for six industries and our results exceeded not only our stated expectations but also our most fervent hopes. We’re currently developing season two and not only will we add another eight industries, but we’ll also look to see what else we can do to rise above the noise in the marketplace while delivering value to our customers and prospects.
Another tactic I am using on a different campaign also came about from brainstorming with Jeff at around the same time we developed the audio drama. This one was far more untried; in fact, we couldn’t find any other example of it. While Searching for Salaì involved our taking an existing tactic — the audio drama — and tuning it for a business purpose, this other tactic came about from our own experiences. We call them audio whitepapers. We were researching how whitepapers are still one of the most valued offers in a B2B marketer’s arsenal yet how difficult it is to get senior executives to read one. We asked ourselves about our reading habits and somewhere in the conversation, Jeff and I got to talking about the types of books we read versus the ones we listen to. Turned out we both listen to non-fiction. We talked about how we listen on our phones while traveling and/or exercising. We talked about smart speakers. And suddenly, we had this crazy idea. So back we went to researching. We discovered (at that time):
-CEG research found 49% of the nearly 500 CEOs surveyed say they download white papers.
-An IDG survey of IT professionals found that 72% of respondents stated that they found that white papers were extremely useful in their decision-making process.
-A Harvard Business Review study confirmed that senior executives are incredibly time-crunched.
-Edison Research revealed that Americans spend nearly four hours per day consuming audio and 44% of them have listened to an audiobook.
-18% of Americans own a smart speaker, and 71% listen to more audio once they purchase one.
So, we asked ourselves: How can we use this audio trend to increase our total market AND increase our hit rate with senior executives?
We started to connect the dots among the points above and the thought hit us ? audio white papers … white papers delivered in audiobook format.
First, we engaged an analyst firm to position our message to 15 industries via white papers, framing the unique benefits including use cases and customer stories.
Next, we hired a professional voice-over artist to record the papers in the form of an audiobook.
Finally, since this had never been done before, we blazed our trail by posting them as videos on YouTube (unlisted so they wouldn’t come up in search results) with chapter indexes to allow listeners to skip around. Then we promoted them on a landing page which required registration. We knew that registered listeners could distribute the link to others who could subsequently access them sans registration, but it was a good start.
Overall, we overshot our goal, delivering 144% of the plan by the end of the year.
Results:
-21% of listeners were C-Suite level
-55% of listeners were VP level
-24% of listeners were Director level
-34% of listeners were from companies with revenue
-19% of listeners were from companies with revenue between $500M and $1B
-47% of listeners were from companies with revenue >$1B
To emphasize the point I made at the beginning, you have to have an integrated strategy. These audio whitepapers were a significant contributor to an overall integrated campaign:
-9.16% average open rate on whitepaper emails
->18.8K total whitepaper downloads on a goal of 10,000
->33K total engagements on a goal of 20K
->234K blog views on a goal of 100K
28% cross-industry share of voice on a goal of 21%
-~4.5K blog referrals
-Lead volume %YoY = an increase of 630%
-Marketing new pipe value %YoY = an increase of 65%...
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Media 7 | January 12, 2021
Collette Johnson, Product Marketing Specialist at Redgate Software, serves as the key player in the marketing success of the organization. She is known for always delivering the highest standards of work for the benefit of the businesses she works for.
MEDIA 7: Congratulations on being listed as one of the ‘Top 100 Product Marketing Influencers 2020’! What inspired you to get into marketing?
COLLETTE JOHNSON: For me, it was all about the customer. Very early on in my career, I realized that enabling organizations to embrace new technology to drive their successes excited me, and this is what inspired me towards a career in marketing. I’m really passionate about understanding how to engage people, learning what messaging and narratives help them in making decisions, and how to enable sales to succeed through the materials we produce. I thoroughly enjoy the learning that you get in marketing and how everything you do is different as you are testing and iterating for the best outcome for customers....
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Media 7 | December 8, 2020
Craig Misrach, President and Board Member at UpLyft joined the organization in 2018, spearheading the company's product launch and commercialization efforts. He began his career at Deloitte where he audited various lower middle-market businesses as a Senior Accountant.
Maintaining an active Certified Public Accountant (CPA) license, Mr. Misrach serves on the Board of Directors of Aculief and the Jewish Community Foundation, San Diego.
MEDIA 7: Could you tell us about your career journey from Deloitte to UpLyft?
CRAIG MISRACH: I started my career at Deloitte as a public accountant and auditor just trying to get the work experience necessary to obtain my CPA license in the State of California. Little did I know how working in janitor closets at client’s office locations whereby doing your job entailed asking questions and information requests from people who didn’t want to talk to you could build so much character!
I left Deloitte to join my client Silvergate Bank where I was the Controller in charge of managing ~$500M in assets at the age of 25. Not only did I gain management responsibility at Silvergate overseeing and working with a staff of 9 individuals, but I also was able to observe first-hand what it was like working in a fast-paced growing entrepreneurial culture as we grew from ~20 to ~70 employees in a short two year period.
I decided to go obtain my MBA at the University of Virginia to round out my skill sets and start a new business from the ground up. This was not a traditional path to do so at the time as most graduate students would go get their MBA from a top-tier program to become an investment banker, management consultant, or marketing manager at a Fortune 500 company. I knew from the time early in my career, and in watching my father start his own real estate business growing up in Ohio, that with hard work and perseverance I could start a successful business from the ground up.
I started my first venture, Freedom Meditech, by way of learning about the diabetes field in my MBA program and researching the reasons why it was still status quo (not just in 2006 but also still today 15 years later) for people with diabetes to be pricking their finger to determine their blood glucose information. I thought that was so archaic and not fair to such individuals when there was better technology available (subject to FDA compliance) to obtain this information non-invasively.
I spent 8+ years as the Founding CEO of Freedom Meditech, where under my leadership, we became the 1st company in the world to obtain FDA clearance for a non-invasive diabetes diagnostic test. The test worked by shining light in a person’s eye for 6 seconds. It was truly revolutionary and the FDA clearance we obtained (the first in the world – we estimated $1B of venture capital went into failed attempts of companies to obtain this FDA clearance and commercialize) was likely one the proudest moments in my career because it was a team effort and a culmination of hard work, numerous late nights, and extremely tough decisions along the way of reducing to practice a prototype, conducting clinical studies, analyzing data, and performing this process all over again several times to support our FDA submission. We built an entire sales organization, international distribution network, sold millions of dollars of product around the world, and then eventually sold the business to Sinocare LTD in China. Our product (ClearPath DS-120) is still used to this day to early detect diabetes and pre-diabetes in patients by clinicians all over the world.
The past 5 years I have spent “giving back” to entrepreneurs and the community by way of participating on Boards of Directors and mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs. This includes positions I have held as a board member on Aculief (sold – June 2020), as a Business/Finance mentor for the San Diego Sports Innovation network, and as a Board Member for the Jewish Community Foundation in San Diego.
I was introduced to UpLyft and our Founder in 2018. I was skeptical at first of the product mostly because I was not familiar with the field and I did not have a frame of reference for how “unique” UpLyft was or the value proposition it embodied. With an investor mentality, I performed due diligence on the durable medical equipment (DME) landscape, other “lifts” on the market for transferring individuals from bedside to wheelchair, and the size of the market opportunity in the US and around the world. Additionally, I had the benefit of being introduced to the company by my contract manufacturer at my last venture (who was slated to be the contract manufacturer for UpLyft), and that helped gain the confidence that we could manufacture UpLyft with impeccable quality, reasonable cost basis, and in a reasonable timeline. I then signed on to be UpLyft’s President and CEO and since that time we have raised capital, performed extensive customer validation (both for the direct to consumer home market and the for the institutional healthcare facility marketplace), accepted pre-orders from customers, and now are staging the business and technology for mass manufacturing in an FDA-compliant manner.
M7: UpLyft is the world’s first Self Transfer System from bed to wheelchair for people with limited mobility. What are the challenges you faced to launch a high-tech innovation like this?
CM: Just like any pre-revenue medical device venture, capitalization is key, and you need to kiss a lot of frogs to obtain the capital necessary to invest in manufacturing so you can mass scale your product. Some refer to this as the valley of death. Initially, we were getting lots of questions on customer validation. Things like “the data suggests this will be a huge success, but we have no proof that customers will be this.” Accordingly, we embarked on several initiatives including:
1. Circulation of surveys to potential customers (and family members, caregivers, and healthcare facility workers) to ascertain what was most important from a product feature, utility, and pricing perspective. Check out our B2B Healthcare Facilities for Nurses/Caregivers.
2. Providing in-person demonstrations where we captured testimonials of use and purchase interest.
3. Creating video content of UpLyft in use (seeing is believing).
4. After securing some angel capital that we could devote to efforts outside of R&D prototype creation and patent filing costs, we were able to establish a digital footprint in 2020 (website, order taking capability, e-mail outreach, social media utility, and engagement) whereby actual customer interest could be measured via open pre-order commitments.
With this customer validation now in hand, we believe we can be successful in obtaining the necessary capital (and reducing financing risk) to commence manufacturing and finally provide our pre-order customers and other potential customers a delivery date certain so they have the confidence to place a deposit with us and manufacture and deliver products to them.
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MEDIA 7 | September 11, 2020
Jeff Epstein, VP Marketing at Comm100 is a B2B marketer with 20+ years’ experience creating compelling messaging and content for sales enablement and demand generation. Having held roles with companies including IBM, General Motors, and Comm100, Jeff knows how to connect solutions to buyers.
MEDIA7: You have a long track record of successfully working in and managing diverse product marketing teams. What are your top three reasons for joining Comm100?
Jeff Epstein: Firstly, I saw a software company with a mature product that had an awareness challenge, not a software capability challenge. It’s fun to market a deep solution! Secondly, digital customer service software is an established domain with a big TAM. And finally, I knew several people on the team already and knew it would be a good cultural fit.
M7: What’s the most valuable lesson you have included in your leadership strategy throughout your career so far? How do you bring out the best in your team’s talent?
JE: Listening is more important than talking, whether you’re managing down or up. My job is to set goals and then help remove obstacles for my team. I can’t do the latter if I don’t listen.
I bring out the best in my team with a simple formula: communicate clear goals, get out of the way until asked for help, provide unsolicited feedback (both positive and constructive) often, and publicly acknowledge achievements.
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MEDIA 7 | June 11, 2020
Philippe Guiheneuc is the Marketing Director at Akio, a company that provides customer experience software platforms. It proposes cross-channel solutions that help you with customer engagement management, voice of the customer analysis and brand reputation monitoring.
In this Q&A, Philippe speaks about customer satisfaction, CRM, marketing strategies, challenges, branding, and more.
MEDIA 7: What inspired you to get into Marketing?
PHILIPPE GUIHENEUC: Coming from a family of officials, farmers and painters, I discovered the world of business at the ESSEC business school in Paris. I carefully avoided three subjects: Computer Science, with its flashy green dashboards on a black background, Accounting, for its remarkable ability to make me lose patience, and Selling, because I could not bear to be told no. Consequently, my first job was to sell accounting software!
Only fools refuse to change their mind. So I may be half intelligent, because althoughI have discovered a passion for businesswith its three components (communication-marketing-sales) and innovation, to the point of teaching storytelling in business schools, unfortunately I remain insensitive to the poetry of a P&L.
That's why I chose to work at Akio. Respect for customers is no longer just a professional obligation but an extraordinary lever for growth. Thanks to the Akio.Cx platform, I contribute a little bit every day to make life easier for customer agents, and that's what makes me happy.
M7: What core issue does Akio.Cx software aim to address and what sets it apart from the competition?
PG: Akio is the editor of the omnichannel call centre platform Akio.Cx. Our core mission is to turn complexity into simplicity!
In the context of increased competition, the quality of the response delivered to clients has become a major stake for all companies. However, the job of a customer advisor is becoming increasingly complex as customers use new channels to interact with companies.
With the customer service platform Akio.Cx, the customer service will develop a personalised experience for its clients, regardless of which channel they choose (phone, e-mail, chat, social media, etc.), thanks to unified client knowledge that is reinforced by semantic analysis.
In 20 years, Akio has built a solid base of references among the largest French companies (AxaBanque, Banque de France, MGEN, URSSAF, Air France, Interflora, Engie, GrDF; Sarenza, Kiabi, Arkea, BPI France Cora, LPM Dyneff, Grep, Ircem, Photoweb, Sandoz, MTP, VMmag, MSD, CAFAT, CGSS, OPT, Bruneau, AMDM, etc.)
Initially, the platform was provided ‘on-premise’, then through a ��hybrid’ model, and since 2017 it’s provided as a ‘SaaS’ tool.
Recently, Akio announced a global partnership with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise that will offer the Akio.Cx platform to all of its 800,000 customers. This alliance is coupled with a project linked to the notion of the "augmented agent", i.e. high-tech tools made available to customer service representatives to facilitate their work and help them gain in efficiency.
...
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Media 7 | May 25, 2020
Rashim Mogha, Founder - eWOW, Keynote Speaker, Startup Advisor, Women in Tech Evangelist, Author, and Podcaster empowers professionals by articulating complex technology capabilities into crisp, clear, and attainable business benefits. Her extensive career portfolio includes leadership roles in companies such as Oracle, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and VMware where she built high-performing teams to support over $2 billion businesses.
A recipient of Women Empowerment: Game Changer, Woman of the Year, and Silicon Valley Woman of Influence awards, Rashim has been a keynote speaker at global conferences and organizations.
MEDIA 7: Could you tell us about your role at eWOW and the event properties you are responsible for?
RM: eWOW (empowered Women of the World) is an intellectual platform that empowers women to discover, visualize, and actualize their success. The platform comprises of podcasts, webinars, in-person and online events, the virtual incubator program and our eWOW Virtual Summit. Being the founder of eWOW, I am responsible for all these events.
M7: With most planned events going online, what do you think of the future events? Will you buckle up for a permanent change into virtual events?
RM: Well, we had planned for the eWOW Virtual Summit to be an online event, even before COVID-19. Our mission is to enable women globally and you can’t really do that without hosting a global event. I have been an enablement leader for over 20 years and webinars and virtual events are not new to me. I think it is time now that events move to an online format to be inclusive. The reach of online events is huge, we had attendees from all 3 timezones in the US, Asia, Europe and even from Australia at the eWOW Virtual Summit. Infact our eWOW Virtual Incubator program that we launched is also a 4 week online program.
That said, there is merit in in-person events and those won’t go away. I do however see online events becoming more popular in the future.
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Media 7 | April 30, 2020
Morgan Gregory, Google Cloud Office of the CTO: Strategy & Programs at Google runs strategy and programs for Google Cloud's CTO Office, working closely with their senior leaders and technical CXOs of strategic customers on co-innovation and thought leadership initiatives.
Morgan has a passion for paradigm-shifting technology and has side hustle in AI. She's particularly interested in AI for Good and Responsible AI - topics that marry her technical background and desire to make a difference.
Deck 7: Did you always know that working in technology was what you wanted to do? What made you to work in computer science?
MORGAN GREGORY: I didn’t always know that I wanted to work in technology. Growing up, it was actually my brother that people predicted would have a career in tech (he now owns and runs a craft brewery in Gibsons, BC).
I always loved math and science, and in my first year and half of university, I took courses that ranged from organic chemistry, to modern stellar astrophysics, to molecular cell biology. I also took a computer science course thinking it would be a valuable tool in whichever field of science I chose to major in. Instead, I fell in love with computer science -- with the creative problem solving and the potential to accelerate innovation across industries -- and ended up choosing it as my major.
I find that these are the same reasons I love my job today as a member of Google’s Office of the CTO (OCTO). Technology continues to offer creative problem solving opportunities, and the work we do in OCTO helps to catalyze innovation with our customers around the world.
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MEDIA 7 | March 4, 2020
Nandini Bhatt, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft works in Experiences and Devices division Intune team. With over a decade of experience as a program manager, half of which is with Microsoft, Nandini has built a unique set of skillset and expertise in running programs for Microsoft?s commercial Cloud Services, including Office 365, Microsoft Intune, Azure and hybrid cloud?programs that are fueling the industry-wide transition in both the public and private cloud.
Deck 7: What is your favorite part of working at Microsoft, Nandini?
NANDINI BHATT: Great culture driven by empathy.
D7: Women in the field of technology are definitely in the minority, so why did you decide to pursue a career in technology?
NB: I come from a relatively middle-class family back in India, and growing up I didn’t have engineers or doctors in my family. Technology has always fascinated me and whenever I met somebody who was an engineer, the first question I would ask them is “what do you do… tell me more about your work...”
I specifically remember this one incident when I was around ten and had met a distant friend of my father who was a civil engineer. The way he’d described his work, the passion he showed for his work and how working in the field of tech had changed his life for better – made me want to pursue my career in tech.
Another thing that’s made me pursue technology is also my mom. I learned a lot from my mom just like everybody else. My mom wanted to pursue Bachelors in science but couldn’t complete her studies because she was married and family had become her primary responsibility. But growing up I saw that passion in her. She has always motivated me to do whatever made me happy and that’s where I felt like I really need to pursue my dreams. If tech is my passion, then I should do that. That’s how I ended up doing my bachelor of engineering.
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DECK 7 | February 19, 2020
Praveena Patchipulusu, Director QA at Hewlett Packard Enterprise carries rich experience in Leadership, Storage, Networking, Quality Assurance, and Automation. She loves spending time with her kids and have been lucky to do so with the right work-life balance while working @HPE Nimble Storage team for 7 years!
Deck 7: Tell us about your role at HPE. What do you like most about working with HPE’s QA team?
PRAVEENA PATCHIPULUSU: My role encompasses project deliveries, strategies, vision for QA team, people leadership, managing budget for the QA team which includes even release management, delivering products keep the customer in mind. It encompasses the role to define, execute and promote quality mindset. For us customer comes first. All the QA functions including manual and automation, working with cross organization leadership to deliver high-quality products on time with the given hardware and people resources.
I do work with the product management in defining the product and development counterpart to work on designing and defining the actual engineering design for the product and also the customer support. So, those are the three big verticals that I have to work with.
At HPE, QA is equally, highly engaged with all the customer escalations, and we have a very good relationship with the support which is very unique compared to a lot of other companies. This gives us a very good insight on what problems we face because we do involve in the escalations. And that helps us analyze what we might have missed in the product and catch it upfront.
Also, sometimes benchmarking is kind of missing in certain aspects within the product, like performance and failover benchmarks so we come up and develop the business quality initiatives and for the future product we measure our own benchmarks.
D7: Are there specific skills that have helped you see what your next step is and to make yourself known as someone who can perform the next-level job?
PP: One is to define the strategy, vision, projects, delivery being the technical aspects of it. Coming from a highly technical background and having done my masters and I have taken on individual roles as QA and development. One thing that helped me grow into this role was people management side of things. So, for me that is one of the biggest skills that helped to get to the next stage. Like growth into management, from first line manager, to senior manager and Director now.
I have some classes HPE offers like leadership, strategic growth through Columbia business school which was an amazing program for six weeks that had virtual sessions with professors etc. And then internally at HPE, they have a lot of senior leader training and nowadays emotional intelligent is picking up a lot. So you have to understand not just the IQ and the technical aspect but how to deal with people and emotional intelligent side of things.
In addition, I also do a lot of management and leadership skills on our team to find what are the strengths within the team. There are books out there like Strength finder, there are activities related to that which I have implemented in my team so we can figure out which people in the team fall in which bucket.
I also believe in multipliers vs. diminishers’ kind of leadership strategy. You cannot keep asking for more and more hardware and people resources. So, within the budget, the time and the resources, you have to multiply people. So, the strength finder is a path towards the multiplier, if you know the strengths of each individual, you maximize their strengths. So that has been my biggest strength to growth.
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MEDIA 7 | January 16, 2020
Maliha Aqeel, Director of Global Communications at Fix Network World is an award-winning, communication and marketing professional who helps companies harness the power of their brand to drive engagement and achieve measurable business results.
She has developed and led content and marcomm programs for B2B companies in the financial and professional services sectors in her over 15 years of industry experience.
MEDIA 7: When did you start working and what was it?
MALIHA AQEEL: I started my career in 1996 right after high school, freelancing as a journalist and features writer for a magazine in Dubai, UAE. Over time, I expanded my services to include scriptwriting for corporate videos and TV productions, writing and designing client newsletters and promotional collateral.
M7: What made you want to pursue a career in branding and marketing communications? What aspect about your role brings you the most joy?
MA: I didn’t consciously decide to pursue a career in marketing and communication as my plan was to become a filmmaker. However, I had great curiosity about what makes people prefer one brand over the other when a feature-by-feature comparison didn’t show a huge difference between similar products or services. I had taken a few advertising courses during university and it broadened my understanding of how powerful brand experiences and storytelling can drive business objectives. That balance of strategy and creativity is what I enjoy most about what I do and why I’ve continued to find purpose in my career.
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MEDIA 7 | November 14, 2019
Matt Amundson, VP of Marketing at EverString has over 10 years of sales and marketing experience. Matt has held roles in Demand Generation and Sales Development at TIBCO, Marketo, FGXI and Red Bull. His primary focus has been on creating processes that generate a consistent, pipeline.
MEDIA 7: Could you tell us about your mantra “Go for the run”?
MATT AMUNDSON: On December 29th of 2017, I decided to change my lifestyle habits and decided that I’m going to run a minimum of one mile every single day. So, every day since that day I’ve got up and ran. It’s been a seminal moment where my approach on life and work has changed dramatically. And as a result of that, it’s become a personal mantra, which is to not be afraid of where you might be today. If you’ve got some lofty goals or if you want to try something new, just get out there and give it a try and see what the results of it could be. On a personal level, whether you’re physically tired or don’t feel like doing it, just give it a shot and go for it. On a professional level, if it’s something that can benefit you or your brand give it a try, go for it and see what happens.
M7: What is your favorite part about working at EverString?
MA: I really love the people that I work with and I’ve been at the organization for about four and a half years. Some of the folks that I’ve worked with since the beginning are still here and it’s just been an awesome journey to be on with some incredible colleagues and that’s just on a personal level. On a professional level, I think we’re all solving a major problem that a lot of organizations are suffering from – which is related to data. As a marketer who has existed in the mar tech space for the broader part of my career, we often think of our process improvements and workflow improvements to gain more efficiency. Whether that’s marketing automation system or a cool new technology like conversational AI most people fall into two camps when it comes to data, either they’re just not conscious of data or they are. The data that they purchase or the data they acquire ultimately powers everything they do from a marketing perspective or they’re used to the status quo of current data providers that provide low quality of data and are sort of mired in the “well I guess that’s the way it is and that’s just the quality level that I have to deal with”. The fact that we’re changing that for some of the world’s biggest brands like Capital One, FedEx, Staples, Autodesk, Oracle as well as the smaller brands is really exciting to me.
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MEDIA 7 | November 7, 2019
David Spark, Content Marketer and Producer, Managing Editor at Spark Media Solutions is a veteran tech journalist and founder of Spark Media Solutions. He’s been the creative director, producer, voice, and face of many content marketing campaigns for a number of Fortune 1000 B2B tech companies.
MEDIA 7: What part of your background, personality, experience, or skill set makes you a particularly effective content marketing professional?
DAVID SPARK:
• Veteran technology journalist (worked across all media)
• Former advertising exec
• Former standup comedian and comedy writer
M7: What inspires you to come up with new ideas for blog posts, campaigns, tech, and media podcasts?
DS: Inspiration is dependent on the project, the output, and the medium. But in general, I’m inspired by finding a topic/question that the audience will eagerly want to answer. Two of our most popular examples:
CISO Series – This is a media channel we started in October 2018 that we tout as couples counseling for security practitioners and vendors. We have such a passionate audience that they’re submitting a steady flow of questions, commentary, and games for our two podcasts. The CISO Series has provided the forum for our audience to be inspired.
“Man on the street” videos – It’s our most popular video format. We’ve produced close to 200 of these and my goal with these videos is to come up with a question where the first reaction is to laugh and then an eagerness about responding. It could be a challenge question (e.g., “What would happen if you left your mobile phone at home for an entire day?”, or something completely inappropriate for the environment (e.g., asking “What’s Your Password?” at a security conference).
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MEDIA 7 | October 7, 2019
Erik Charles, Vice President and Solutions Evangelist at Xactly Corporation is an accomplished professional with over two decades of experience in Marketing, Consulting, and Product Evangelization. Erik focuses on helping companies drive expansion and growth by better aligning positions, responsibilities, and incentives.
Erik serves as a subject matter expert in the area of Sales Performance Management to ensure that Xactly’s marketing, sales and product teams have the necessary strategic input for industry leading messaging, positioning, and future direction.
MEDIA 7: When did you start working and what was it?
ERIK CHARLES: In early 1980s, I wrote software on TRS-80 model II coded in BASIC to enable for computerized quotes for a life insurance agency. I was in middle school at the time, that was a contract work. My next job was at a software store back when software used to be bundled up into a cardboard box with inserted floppy disks and then it went on from there.
M7: You have an astounding experience of over two decades with industry pioneers like Apple, Sun Microsystems, Canon and recently Xactly Corporation. What has been the driving force behind your remarkable career?
EC: There are two things: as a marketer, I don’t believe in mistakes, I only believe in experiments and what we can learn from them, that has kept me moving forward. I keep on trying new things and seeing what works. I assume that just because it worked last week doesn’t mean it’s going to work tomorrow. So, I’ve never allowed myself to get into a rut. I have always been more than willing to find people who can provide excellent advice at critical moments, even on a specific direction. Finding someone that I can speak with, that can give me a few tips, tricks, hints, ideas, direction or path on moving on. So, I have never been afraid to ask just how could I do this better.
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MEDIA 7 | October 1, 2019
Mark Halstead, Managing Director at iCumulus is a senior executive with 20 years of Media / Advertising industry experience, a high profile pioneer of digital media experienced within Australia, New Zealand and SE Asia.
Mark is a hands-on team manager with proven track record of profitability and revenue growth within high growth industries, start up companies or divisions.
MEDIA 7: What are you passionate about?
MARK HALSTEAD: Being someone who’s been an entrepreneur and in the digital media and advertising industry for a long time, we’re passionate about our innovation within this sector and how technology can really drive us further into increasing revenue.
M 7: Do you believe that marketers should revamp their strategies with technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to increase their efficiency?
MH: Absolutely. There’s an application that we think is suitable for everyone but I think it has to be the right time and the right fit based on where it’s best applicable. So now that people are starting to learn more about it and think about it, there’s absolutely an application for AI within marketing.
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MEDIA 7 | September 19, 2019
Tom Raftery, Global VP at SAP is an Innovation Evangelist, Futurist, and international Keynote speaker. Prior to joining SAP, Tom worked for a number of companies at Group IT Manager/CTO level, and as an Industry Analyst. Tom is a global thought leader and ranks among the top 10 Internet of Things influencers in the world.
MEDIA 7: If I were to say to a bunch of people who know you, ‘Give me three adjectives that best describe you’, what would I hear?
TOM RAFTERY: I would like to think that I am a good communicator, maybe smart and hopefully generous. You will have to ask people other than myself though. They would be a better judge.
M7: What is the role of a technology influencer in driving environmental sustainability?
TR: The role of someone like me would be to raise awareness of the issues that are happening and potential solutions to them, particularly technological solutions. A lot of people are busy in their day-to-day lives and they might not be aware of some of the more pressing environmental issues that are happening in the world and that might impact them. So, raising awareness with people, of the importance of these issues, and the potential technological solutions to them is the role I think that influencers should be playing.
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MEDIA 7 | June 25, 2019
Olivia Taylor, Director of CRO at Directive Consulting has 10 years of working experience in graphic designing and has expert knowledge in CRO/UX in landing pages and websites designing.
Olivia was recently nominated for the Orange County Business Journal's Top 25 Women in Business Awards.
MEDIA 7: What’s your superpower?
OLIVIA TAYLOR: I would like to think my superpower is empathy. That’s part of what CRO is: figuring out and understanding what’s going on through people’s minds and finding out what people need and want.
M7: Does it point to user intent, a term generally used in Account Based Marketing?
OT: Yes, exactly that. Because I’m able to basically understand where the consumer and the buyer is coming from, I can better optimize my clients’ websites, change that language in the headline and the subhead to relate to the customers’ pain points and better describe the benefits of what my client can provide to them.
M7: Your career spans an impressive 8 years from a Graphic Designer to being a Director of CRO at Directive Consulting. What attracted you to this industry, and how does Directive Consulting fit into your story?
OT: I became a designer because all other subjects in school were boring. 2+2 will always be 4, but with design, there are so many possibilities - so many different solutions to a problem. Plus, I always loved drawing and creating.
While going to school, I worked as a designer at a few different places. Then upon graduating, I worked at a tech company in-house but it just wasn’t for me. I moved on to an agency that was full-service, but that also was not the right fit. After that job, I ended up at a PPC agency where I learned about CRO. I started there as just a designer and left there as the Director of CRO.
Using the skills I learned there, I was able to join the upstanding company that is Directive where I’m learning so much more, and doing so many more awesome things than I did at any other job and it has been amazing. It’s so wonderful to work at a place that is professional and that takes the work so seriously, only striving to be the best at being different.
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MEDIA 7 | April 3, 2019
Tyler Lessard, VP Marketing of Vidyard has been recently named as an Epic Marketer by Marketo. In this interesting Q&A, Tyler takes us through his marketing journey and shares with us the value of technology in an era where videos are not just visually replenishing, but are also empowering the customer service teams in more ways than one.
MEDIA 7: What were you doing prior to your current position?
TYLER LESSARD: Prior to joining Vidyard as VP Marketing, I spent 10 years at BlackBerry, building out their developer relations program and global partner community. It was an incredible opportunity to learn the importance of relationship building and strong storytelling on a global scale, and the need to simplify how we articulate and position the value of technology for line-of-business customers.
M7: What are the changes that video hosting and management have undergone over the past couple of years at Vidyard?
TL: In recent years we’ve seen the conversation with businesses change from “why should I invest in video” to “how do I unlock the power of video across my marketing, sales and customer service teams”. This has driven us to focus on delivering new solutions through the lenses of these key audiences and what they are really trying to achieve.
We’re now helping marketing teams increase audience engagement with personalized and interactive video experiences, boost conversion rates on digital channels with optimized video experiences within their websites and email marketing, and accelerate deal cycles using video engagement data within their marketing automation platforms to qualify prospects. We’re helping sales development reps stand out and increase their response rates using personalized video messages sent via our Vidyard GoVideo app. And we’re helping customer service teams reduce call volumes and increase customer satisfaction with video-based knowledge articles embedded within customer communities. It’s all about helping businesses leverage video in new ways to improve the customer experience and generate more revenue....
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Robin Lawlor | November 26, 2018
In this Q&A, Henson Gawliu Jr. gives us a glimpse about how his career started into marketing and why he fell in love with technology. Here are his thoughts on marketing and driving customer experience.
MEDIA 7: Can you tell me about your background? I understand you went to San Jose State University and achieved your BS in Management Information Systems.
HENSON GAWLIU JR.: Obviously, I’m in marketing now, but I actually started off my career doing IT and a little bit of help desk, some Q&A, some product management for early startups. And I kind of got lucky when I stumbled into a position where at that time everyone had a website, but didn’t know what to do with it. One of my responsibilities was to figure out how to make money off of it and that’s kind of how my career started into marketing. Where I started really researching SEO and Paid Search, at the time, and I got into the digital world very early. I kind of had an interesting career, I’m not your typical B2B marketer, I have done lead generation for attorneys, I’ve done lead generation for universities and worked in the B2C ecom space and now the B2B space. ...
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