Humans of Martech
Future-proofing the humans behind the tech. Follow Phil Gamache and Darrell Alfonso on their mission to help future-proof the humans behind the tech and have successful careers in the constantly expanding universe of martech.
238: The System to make your prospects the hero before they buy, with Aditya Vempaty
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Aditya Vempaty, VP of Marketing at Coram AI.
(00:00) - Intro (01:07) - In This Episode (05:05) - Why Expansion Revenue Beats New Logos When Channels Are Saturated (06:07) - Why Customer Empathy Means Knowing What Gets Your Buyer Promoted (12:38) - How to Tell If Your Case Study Makes the Customer the Hero (18:16) - Why Single Channel Attribution Hides the Journey That Closed the Deal (22:00) - How to Find Real Customer Problems by Paying for 30 Minute Interviews (30:29) - The 3 Levels That Connect Marketing Strategy to Tactical Execution (36:32...237: Designing the utopian marketing leadership role, with Mary Keough
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Mary Keough, Fractional Demand Gen for B2B at DemandLoops.
(00:00) - Intro (01:12) - In This Episode (04:30) - How to Write LinkedIn Posts That Hit a Nerve Without AI (06:39) - How to Run an Honest Goal Setting Conversation With Your Founder (14:46) - Why Marketing Always Catches the Scope Creep at Startups (18:39) - How New Marketing VPs Establish Credibility in Their First Month (28:30) - How Women in Marketing Leadership Get Out of the Marketing Girl Box (33:49) - How to Tell if a Founder Who Doesn't Get...236: What AI replaces in data work and when not to reach for it, with Julie Beynon
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Julie Beynon, Head of Analytics at Augment Code.
(00:00) - Intro (01:07) - In This Episode (04:13) - Breaking Into Data Without A Computer Science Background (06:05) - Why AI Made Building Cheap But Maintenance Expensive (09:25) - How To Push Back On AI Projects Without Killing Momentum (12:28) - Building AI Agents That Multiply A Two Person Data Team (16:29) - When Not To Reach For AI At Work (22:23) - Running A Lean Data Team As A Force Multiplier (27:28) - The Spreadsheet Test For Keeping Your Data Stack Simple (31:49...235: Why consent banners, tags and privacy policies never match, with Stéphane Hamel
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Stéphane Hamel, Founder and Product Architect at MANTIS.
(00:00) - Intro (01:07) - In This Episode (04:07) - How To Audit Which Trackers Are Firing On Your Website (07:00) - Why Nobody On Your Team Owns The Tags Firing On Your Site (11:22) - Why Your Consent Banner Does Not Match What Your Site Actually Does (16:45) - Does Server Side Tagging Actually Improve Privacy Governance (22:30) - Why Loading A Third Party Script Is Already A Privacy Risk (27:30) - What Happens When You File A Privacy Complaint In Canada (36:42...234: How to run a marketing ops audit and turn it into a roadmap with Kelsie Dube
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Kelsie Dube, Director of Marketing Operations and Automation at Unanet.
(00:00) - Intro (01:09) - In This Episode (05:31) - Why New Marketing Ops Leaders Should Audit Before They Act (10:09) - How to Run a Marketing Ops Audit When You Join a Company (16:04) - How to Balance a Full Audit Against Your Boss's Priorities (19:00) - How to Spot a Process Problem Disguised as a Tool Problem (23:41) - How to Surface Shadow Processes and Duplicate Tools in an Audit (31:08) - How to Choose a New Martech Tool With...233: 4 Mindsets that modern marketing leaders need for unpredictable markets, with author Kathleen Schaub
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Kathleen Schaub, Author, Strategist, and Advisor in Marketing Management and Organizations.
We cover:
232: How taste can be codified into systems and is no longer a durable skill, and what's next with Sharon Gai
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Sharon Gai, author, keynote speaker, and educator.
We'll cover:
231: Why Lattice careers and communication skills are built for the AI era, with Michele Martin from Ticketmaster
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Michele Martin, Senior Director of Global Brand and Integrated Marketing at Ticketmaster.
Summary: Most career advice still hands you a ladder and tells you to climb. Michele makes the case for a lattice instead, the crisscross path of sideways and diagonal moves that built her range across banking, retail, a startup, and now Ticketmaster. Along the way she breaks down why the call center job she almost refused changed everything, how mentorship and sponsorship are 2 different engines, and why communication beats coding as the skill...
230: Zero-click marketing broke the measurement layer, so what should ops teams do now, with Amanda Natividad
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Amanda Natividad, Chief Evangelist at SparkToro and co-author of Zero Click Marketing.
We'll cover:
229: The Privacy lawsuits coming for every marketing team, with Cara Caruso and Dustin Taylor
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Cara Caruso, CEO and co-founder of Sentinel Insights, and Dustin Taylor, counsel at Troutman Pepper Locke.
We'll cover:
228: The Dispatch tower (The Dungeon of martech architecture, part 4)
What’s up folks, welcome to our 4 part series of crawling through the dungeon of martech architecture. You’ve arrived at our final episode, part 4: The Dispatch Tower.
We’ll tackle:
227: The Correlation masquerade (The Dungeon of martech architecture, part 3)
What’s up folks, welcome to our 4 part series of Crawling through the dungeon of martech architecture. You’ve arrived at Part 3: The Correlation Masquerade.
We'll cover:
226: The Eye of context (The Dungeon of martech architecture, part 2)
What’s up folks, welcome to our 4 part series of Crawling through the dungeon of martech architecture. You’ve arrived at Part 2: The Eye of Context.
We cover:
225: The Fall of CRM gravity (The Dungeon of martech architecture, part 1)
What’s up folks, welcome to our 4 part series of Crawling THROUGH THE DUNGEON OF MARTECH ARCHITECTURE
You’ve arrived at Part1 : The Fall of CRM GravityÂ
(00:00) - Intro (00:57) - In This Episode (01:31) - Sponsor: MoEngage (02:28) - Sponsor: Knak (04:53) - FLOOR 1: Why the CRM Lost Its Authority (06:09) - Why Every Team Moved Into the CRM (And How It Lost Its Authority) (13:57) - Why Sharing CRM Data Always Breaks It (18:02) - Why CRM Gravity Outlasts the Technical Argument (24:04) - BOSS BATTLE: The False Truth King (25:44) - Sponsor: GrowthLoop (26:48) - Sponsor: GrowthBench (34:56) - Why Centralizing Data Only...224: How OpenAI’s GTM leader structures teams and spots standout candidates with Keith Jones
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Keith Jones, Head of GTM Systems at OpenAI.
Summary: Keith's GTM systems team at OpenAI got split across 2 orgs, ran into the most wildly practical cost center problem imaginable, and ended up proving exactly why distributed systems teams at high-velocity companies don't work. In this episode, he walks through the full restructuring journey, explains why "be close to the money" now means be close to the budget rather than the revenue motion, and breaks down Symphony and harness engineering — the open-source agentic code orchestration tools hi...
223: How Zapier uses a shared brain to manage AI context and skills with Lindsay Rothlisberger
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Lindsay Rothlisberger, Director of GTM Innovation at Zapier.
(00:00) - Intro (01:23) - In This Episode (02:00) - Sponsor: Knak (03:08) - Sponsor: MoEngage (05:49) - How Zapier's RevOps Team Built Its AI Foundation (19:43) - Why Visibility Has to Come Before Governance in AI Adoption (24:58) - Sponsor: GrowthBench (25:58) - Sponsor: GrowthLoop (29:48) - How Zapier Fights Context Rot in Its AI Shared Brain (35:55) - How Zapier Governs Shared AI Skills from Review to Long-Term Ownership (39:27) - What Happens to RevOps When Everyone Around Them Can Build (45:05) - The Director of...222: How senior MOps practitioners are navigating the 2026 job search with Ashley Langford
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Ashley Langford, Marketing Operations and RevOps Leader.
Summary: Ashley Langford has every credential the MOps job search advice says you're supposed to have: 2 Marketo Champion designations, a decade of B2B SaaS experience across multiple industries, a strong community presence, and a track record of building functions from scratch. She's still getting auto-rejected within minutes and ghosted by companies she was genuinely excited about. In this episode, she breaks down what the MOps job search actually looks like in 2026 from the inside, including how she...
221: You need Minimum Viable Readiness for AI because perfect data doesn't exist with Jason Dobbs
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Jason Dobbs, Head of Marketing and GTM Engineering at Kumo AI.
(00:00) - Intro (01:24) - In This Episode (01:57) - Sponsor: MoEngage (02:54) - Sponsor: Knak (04:35) - How Undefined Data Definitions Make AI Confidently Wrong (08:18) - Why Context Engineering Replaces Prompt Engineering as the AI Bottleneck (12:59) - The Five Non-Negotiables for AI Readiness in Marketing Ops (15:42) - Why Marketing Ops Is the Context Architect in an AI-First GTM Stack (24:50) - Which Data Problems Block AI Deployment and Which You Can Ignore (28:29) - Sponsor: GrowthLoop (29:32) - Sponsor: AttributionApp (34:24...220: How to build content engineering systems that get cited and scale without slop with Alex Halliday
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Alex Halliday, Founder and CEO at AirOps.
(00:00) - Intro (01:19) - In This Episode (01:54) - Sponsor: Attribution App (02:57) - Sponsor: GrowthLoop (04:19) - How AirOps Pivoted to AI Content Engineering (08:23) - The Real Definition of Content Engineering and Why It's Not About Publishing More (13:14) - What a Content Engineer Does That a Senior Content Marketer Does Not (27:31) - What It Actually Takes to Get AI Content Past a Human Editor (30:52) - Sponsor: Knak (32:00) - Sponsor: MoEngage (43:21) - Why Review Becomes the Bottleneck After You Automate Content...219: Inside Databricks' stack with 3 AI agents, 1 lakehouse, and 6 years of data work with Elizabeth Dobbs
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Elizabeth Dobbs, AVP of Marketing Technology, Data and Growth at Databricks.
(00:00) - Intro (01:18) - In This Episode (01:47) - Sponsor: Knak (02:55) - Sponsor: MoEngage (04:16) - Why Velocity Beats Permanence in Marketing Data Architecture (12:00) - Why Databricks Embedded Data Engineers Inside Marketing (15:02) - Inside Databricks' 3 Marketing Ops Agents (18:56) - How Databricks Built an AI Analyst That Marketing Teams Actually Trust (26:13) - How Agent Tagatha Cut Months of Manual Content Tagging to Hours (30:07) - Sponsor: AttributionApp (31:09) - Sponsor: GrowthLoop (34:48) - How Agent Atlas Replaced the Rules-Based Segmentation...218: Build a marketing career that survives AI as a deep generalist with Tata Maytesyan
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Tata Maytesyan, Growth Consultant, Keynote Speaker, and AI Trainer.
(00:00) - Intro (01:08) - In This Episode (01:46) - Sponsor: GrowthLoop (02:50) - Sponsor: Attribution App (04:34) - Which Marketing Tasks Are Actually Worth Automating (13:07) - Why Deep Generalists Outperform Channel Specialists in Marketing (26:07) - Sponsor: MoEngage (27:04) - Sponsor: Knak (35:06) - Why Marketing Org Charts Are Not Getting Flatter (43:01) - Why Change Management Determines Whether AI Adoption Actually Sticks (48:03) - The Fear of Automating Yourself Out of a Job (53:13) - The Voice Diary Technique for Tracking Your Own Energy...217: How to interview a company before you take the job (The Martech job hunt survival guide, part 3)
Summary: This episode closes Phil and Darrell's 3-part series on the marketing ops job market with the question they've been building toward: what do you ask the company? Darrell shares a firsthand account of taking a job under financial pressure, ignoring red flags he recognized in the moment, and landing in a toxic environment within months. What follows is a structured set of interview questions across 6 categories, from leadership self-awareness to what happened to the last person in the role, designed to help you separate the job offer from the job reality. If the only question you've ever asked...
216: How to stand out as a candidate with AI prep, portfolios and tools (The Martech job hunt survival guide, part 2)
What’s up everyone, today we continue with part 2 of a 3 part series we’re calling The Martech Job Hunt Survival Guide. Part 2 is: How to stand out as a candidate with AI prep, portfolios and tools.
Summary: Phil and Darrell spent this episode breaking down what actually moves the needle when you’re searching for a role: building the portfolio that almost no marketing ops professional bothers to save, navigating the AI experience question, knowing when to take a contract role instead of holding out, and skipping the AI job-search tools that make you look like everyo...
215: How to find hidden job opportunities (The Martech job hunt survival guide, part 1)
What's up everyone, today we kick off part 1 of a 3 part series we’re calling The Martech Job Hunt Survival Guide. Part 1 is: How to find hidden job opportunities.
In This Episode:
214: Claude Code is creating a new class of elite marketers and the mental models that make it click with Austin Hay
What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Austin Hay, Martech, Revtech, and GTM systems advisor, AND – AI builder, writer, and ex-founder.Â
In This Episode:
213: The next marketing advantage is pre-testing ideas on synthetic users with John Whalen
What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. John Whalen, Cognitive Scientist, Author, and Founder at Brilliant Experience.
shTNmWsiInndTRwsf735
Summary: John has spent his career studying how people actually think, and his conclusion is uncomfortable for anyone who believes their marketing decisions are more rational than they are. In this episode, John explores how synthetic users built from cognitive science principles can fill the massive research gap that most teams quietly ignore, and why removing the human interviewer from the room might be the fastest way to finally hear th...
212: The Causal AI revolution and the boomerang effect in marketing decision science with Tobias Konitzer
Summary: Tobi challenged marketing’s fixation on prediction. He has built highly accurate LTV models, but accuracy alone does not move revenue. Marketing is intervention. Correlation shows patterns; causality tells you what happens when you pull a lever. That shift reshapes experimentation, explains why dynamic allocation can outperform static A B tests, and highlights how self learning systems can backfire or get stuck in local maxima. It also fuels his skepticism of unleashing agentic AI on historical data without a causal layer. If you want to change outcomes instead of forecast them, your systems need to understand levers and lo...
211: Overcoming frankenstacks and AI uncertainty with first principles and business judgement with Jenna Kellner
What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of chatting with Jenna Kellner, VP Marketing at Workleap.
(00:00) - Intro (01:14) - In This Episode (04:30) - How to Manage Marketing Tech Debt During Rapid Growth (10:10) - How to Prioritize RevOps Tech Debt Without Perfect ROI Models (14:23) - Reasoning Through Broken Systems and Imperfect Data (19:23) - How High Performers Progress Anyway (24:28) - How to Build Confidence With AI Through Small Experiments (33:06) - How to Use Exit Planning and Cost Benefit Analysis for AI Tool Selection (35:57) - First principles matter more than tools (38:59) - Why Staying Close to Execution Im...210: 6 Things the next generation of marketing ops leaders must learn with Ronald Gaines
What’s up folks, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Ronald Gaines, Digital Transformation & Marketing Ops Leader at Sunbelt Rentals, Inc.
(00:00) - Intro (01:12) - In This Episode (06:18) - 1. Learning to Operate Without Formal Authority (13:59) - 2. Stop Waiting for the Org to Define Your Marketing Ops Role (22:53) - 3. The Hidden Cost of Self Taught Ops and Minimum Viable Discipline (31:46) - 4. Thinking in Products Instead of Tasks (39:15) - 5. Data Discipline Outlasts Any Platform (48:38) - 6. How to Design a Marketing Ops Intake Process That Protects Team Capacity (52:18) - Personal Energy Allocation Framework For Marketing Ops Leaders209: Why Adtech is really a marketplace with its own economics with Maria Solodilova
What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Maria Solodilova, Head of Business Development at Yango Ads.
(00:00) - Intro (01:17) - In This Episode (04:23) - Mobile Ad Mediation Business Development Explained (09:58) - AI Credibility In Ad Tech Sales (18:42) - Why Adtech is Really a Marketplace With Its Own Economics (30:30) - Programmatic Ad Auctions And Inventory Dynamics (35:22) - Building Trust in Programmatic Advertising Transparency (43:39) - The Future of Contextual Advertising (46:47) - Buy-in Tip (48:03) - Books Recommendations (51:07) - Happiness SystemSummary: Maria takes us on a guided tour across the adtech landscape from a...
208: Exploring causal context graphs and machine customers, starting in retail media networks with Anthony Rotio
What’s up folks, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Anthony Rotio, Chief Data Strategy Officer at GrowthLoop.
(00:00) - Intro (01:10) - In this episode (04:05) - Journeying From Robotics to Modern Marketing Systems (11:05) - Most Marketing Systems Don’t Learn Because They Lack Feedback Loops (16:10) - The Martech Engineering Talent Gap (19:51) - AI Will Amplify Whoever Has the Cleanest Causal Feedback Loop (29:17) - Agent Context Graphs for Drift Detection in Marketing Systems (31:51) - Humans Will Set Hypotheses, AI Will Accelerates Iteration (35:50) - The Evolution of Retail Media Networks (45:07) - How Commerce Networks Redefine Targeting With...207: Building a career that doesn't hollow you out (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 3)
"Hey – So what do you do?” Why is it that we always default to work when we get this question. its like many of us have let our jobs become the center of how we see ourselves. This slowly happens to many of us, as work occupies more mental and emotional space.
I asked 50 people in martech and operations how they stay happy under sustained pressure.
This 3 part series – titled “50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy” explores each of these layers through the lived experience of operators who feel the same pressure you probably feel right...
206: The people who keep you standing (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 2)
Pressure at work rarely stays contained within the job. It spills into family life, friendships, and daily relationships. I asked 50 operators how they stay happy while managing responsibility at work and at home.
This 3 part series – titled “50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy” explores each of these layers through the lived experience of operators who feel the same pressure you probably feel right now.
Today we continue with part 2: connection, the relationships that recharge you and keep you standing when the work would otherwise knock you sideways.
We’ll hear from 17 people a...
205: The daily infrastructure behind sustainable careers (50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy, part 1)
Careers place a ton of demand on energy and attention way before results start to stabilize. Many operators discover that health and routine determine how long they can operate at a high level.
I spoke with 50 people working in martech and operations about how they stay happy under pressure.
This 3 part series – titled “50 Operators share the systems that keep them happy” explores each of these layers through the lived experience of operators who feel the same pressure you probably feel right now.
Today we start with part 1: stability through routines, boundaries, and systems that p...
204: Trust infrastructure and freakish curiosity as career growth levers with Phyllis Fang
What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Phyllis Fang, Head of Marketing at Transcend.
(00:00) - Intro (01:23) - In This Episode (04:13) - Uber Safety Marketing Shaped A Trust First Marketing Playbook (10:12) - How Permissioned Data Systems Power Personalization at Scale (15:22) - How Consent Infrastructure Improves Personalization Performance (19:20) - How to Audit Consent and Compliance in Marketing Data (23:24) - What Consent Management Does Across AI Data Lifecycles (28:29) - How to Build a Marketing Trust Stack (30:49) - Consent Management as a Revenue Lever (35:10) - Designing Marketing Teams for Freakish Curiosity (41:19) - Skills That De...203: How to distinguish fake traffic from real machine customers with Jordan Resnick
What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Jordan Resnick, Senior Director, Marketing Operations at CHEQ.
(00:00) - Intro (01:10) - In This Episode (03:47) - Demystifying Go-to-Market Security (06:14) - The Fake Traffic Surge (08:14) - How the Dead Internet Theory Connects to Bot Traffic Growth (12:31) - How to Detect Bot Traffic Through Behavioral Patterns (16:13) - How Go To Market Teams Reduce Fake Traffic And Lead Pollution (30:03) - Preventing Fake Leads From Reaching Sales (34:17) - How to Calculate Revenue Impact of Fake Traffic (38:09) - How to Report Marketing Performance When Bot Traffic Skews Metrics (43:58) - Tr...202: AI search crawlability and why your site’s technical foundations decide your visibility with Aleyda SolĂs
What’s up everyone, today we have the honor of sitting down with Aleyda SolĂs, SEO and AI search consultant.
(00:00) - Intro (01:17) - In This Episode (04:55) - Crawlability Requirements for AI Search Engines (12:21) - LLMs As A New Search Channel In A Multi Platform Discovery System (18:42) - AI Search Visibility Analysis for SEO Teams (29:17) - Creating Brand Led Informational Content for AI Search (35:51) - Choosing SEO Topics That Drive Brand-Aligned Demand (45:50) - How Topic Level Analysis Shapes AI Search Strategy (50:01) - LLM Search Console Reporting Expectations (52:09) - Why LLM Search Rewards Brands With Real Community Sig...201: Scott Brinker: If he reset his career today, where would he focus?
What’s up everyone, today we have the honor of sitting down with the legendary Scott Brinker, a rare repeat guest, the Martech Landscape creator, the Author of Hacking Marketing, The Godfather of Martech himself.
(00:00) - Intro (01:12) - In This Episode (05:09) - Scott Brinker’s Guidance For Marketers Rethinking Their Career Path (11:27) - If You Started Over in Martech, What Would You Learn First (16:47) - People Side (21:13) - Life Long Learning (26:20) - Habits to Stay Ahead (32:14) - Why Deep Specialization Protects Marketers From AI Confusion (37:27) - Why Technical Skills Decide the Future of Your Marketing Career (41:00) - Wh...200: Matthew Castino: How Canva measures marketing
What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Matthew Castino, Marketing Measurement Science Lead @ Canva.
(00:00) - Intro (01:10) - In This Episode (03:50) - Canva’s Prioritization System for Marketing Experiments (11:26) - What Happened When Canva Turned Off Branded Search (18:48) - Structuring Global Measurement Teams for Local Decision Making (24:32) - How Canva Integrates Marketing Measurement Into Company Forecasting (31:58) - Using MMM Scenario Tools To Align Finance And Marketing (37:05) - Why Multi Touch Attribution Still Matters at Canva (42:42) - How Canva Builds Feedback Loops Between MMM and Experiments (46:44) - Canva’s AI Workflow Automation for Ge...199: Anna Aubuchon: Moving BI workloads into LLMs and using AI to build what you used to buy
What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Anna Aubuchon, VP of Operations at Civic Technologies.
(00:00) - Intro (01:15) - In This Episode (04:15) - How AI Flipped the Build Versus Buy Decision (07:13) - Redrawing What “Complex” Means (12:20) - Why In House AI Provides Better Economics And Control (15:33) - How to Treat AI as an Insourcing Engine (21:02) - Moving BI Workloads Out of Dashboards and Into LLMs (31:37) - Guardrails That Keep AI Querying Accurate (38:18) - Using Role Based AI Guardrails Across MCP Servers (44:43) - Ops People are Creators of Systems Rather Than Maintainers of The...