Every January, marketing declares a revolution. Every December, it realizes that most of it was PowerPoint.

But something genuinely structural is unfolding now. The experts may disagree on vocabulary, but not on trajectory: by 2026, marketing will be less about campaigns and more about systems; less about creativity-as-output and more about creativity-as-judgment; less about data accumulation and more about data governance.

If the first three parts of this series charted the industry’s emotional arc—from AI skepticism to proof to the return of authority—this chapter confronts the operational reality. The profession is being rewired, not upgraded.

And the people running it know they’re running out of time.

From Assistants to Autonomous Systems

The most immediate shift is the one already humming under the surface: AI is graduating.

“From ‘Co-pilots’ to ‘Agents’ (The rise of Agentic AI): We are moving past the phase where marketers chat with AI to generate text,” says Palmer Houchins, VP of Marketing at G2. “In 2026, we will continue to see the rise of autonomous AI agents that can execute complex workflows—optimizing ad spend, reallocating budgets, and deploying campaigns with minimal human oversight. Brands need to prepare their data infrastructure now to support this level of automation.”

This is not a future of smarter tools. It is a future of smaller human teams.

Lisa Sharapata, VP of AI & GTM Strategy at Metadata, sees the same consolidation coming. “Marketing teams will get smarter. By 2026, small senior teams will oversee fleets of AI agents that handle the executional heavy lifting, including campaign setup, testing, and optimization. The brands that embrace this model will scale faster and cheaper; the ones that don’t will be outpaced by lean teams focused on strategy, creativity, and outcomes.”

That last line should send a chill through middle management.

Rick Erwin, CEO of Adstra, frames it even more starkly: “AI-native marketing will be mainstream by the end of 2026. This is different from the way that most industry participants have looked for ways to ‘bolt on’ AI aspects into their existing workflows. For brands, this changes workforce planning, shifting marketers’ duty to supervising AI performance and away from their old tasks.”

Supervision instead of execution. Judgment instead of labor.

This is the managerial class’s existential pivot.

The Collapse of the Old Martech Empire

For a decade, the answer to every marketing problem was the same: buy another platform.

That era is ending.

Erwin predicts a reckoning: “The phenomenon of overgrown, complex martech stacks will begin to consolidate and collapse due to the mainstream adoption of AI-based app coding. As English increasingly becomes the primary developer language, brands can satisfy their ‘all I need this application to do is x’ by quickly and inexpensively building that solution themselves, rather than licensing massive software packages that perform more operations than the brand needs.”

In other words, the $200,000 annual license is about to meet the $20 AI prompt.

Sharapata goes further, declaring the conceptual framework itself obsolete. “The funnel is dead; the customer journey mesh takes over. Buyers zig-zag across channels, platforms, and conversations; they no longer follow a neat linear path. The winners of marketing will use AI to read and influence this messy, multi-touch reality. Anyone still relying on last-click attribution or linear funnels will be making decisions with a 2015 playbook.”

If the funnel dies, so do many of the dashboards built to worship it.

Meanwhile, in regulated and high-stakes environments like healthcare, the transformation looks more surgical but no less profound. Julius Ramirez, EVP & GM, Global Data & AI Products and Partnerships at Doceree, argues that intelligence—not scale—will be the new battleground.

“Behavioral intent signals will replace traditional audience targeting. The real differentiator won’t be knowing who the audience is, but understanding when a decision is forming and what signals indicate that moment. Second, AI will move from optimization to real-time orchestration, dynamically selecting channels, formats, and messaging based on context rather than static plans.”

This is marketing as live navigation rather than preplanned travel.

Trust Becomes the New Algorithm

If AI is the engine of 2026, trust will be its fuel.

Houchins believes the industry is quietly shifting from attention to authenticity. “The ‘Trust Premium’ replaces the ‘Attention Economy’: As the web gets flooded with AI slop, consumers will become incredibly skeptical. The most valuable currency in 2026 won’t just be grabbing attention, but in proving authenticity.”

Sharapata echoes that sentiment with a more regulatory lens: “Cookies are gone, transparency and trust take over. The collapse of third-party tracking ends surveillance-style marketing. Zero-party data becomes the new currency — information customers choose to share because the brand delivers value.”

This is where the expert consensus fractures.

Erwin calls “zero party data” the most misleading buzzword of the year. “The issue is that most brands will never collect a sufficient amount of this data for conducting marketing and advertising at scale… self-reported consumer preferences that are typically considered ‘zero party data’ are notoriously inaccurate, and therefore poor intelligence for improved marketing outcomes.”

Same diagnosis, different prescriptions.

Ramirez brings the argument back to ethics: “The truth is, real personalization requires something far deeper: understanding clinical context, behavioral intent, and the timing of decision-making, and then engaging responsibly within those moments. It’s not about delivering more messages; it’s about delivering the right one with respect for the care pathway.”

In 2026, privacy will not just be a compliance function. It will be a competitive differentiator.

The Buzzword Graveyard

Every era needs its villains. This one has several.

For Houchins, the prime offender is the promise of omniscience. “Most overhyped buzzword: ‘Full-funnel AI.’ It’s everywhere this year, but most brands still use it as a catch-all promise rather than a practical capability.”

Sharapata sets her sights on a more generic sin: “The most overhyped term this year is ‘AI-powered’. It’s a label slapped on everything from email tools to schedulers, usually meaning nothing more than basic, isolated automation.”

And Ramirez takes aim at a word the industry has abused for years: “The most overhyped term this year is ‘personalization.’ It’s become a catch-all promise everyone claims to deliver, yet very few define what it actually means.”

Strip away the hype, and the message is consistent: marketing has been naming the destination long before building the road.

Advice for the Next Generation

The final question posed to each executive was deceptively simple: What should young marketers do to survive all this?

The answers were remarkably aligned.

“Become the ‘Editor-in-Chief,’ not just the Creator,” says Houchins. “In an AI world, creating average content is free and instant… Don’t compete with the bots on volume; compete on insight and speed.”

Erwin offers a pragmatic mantra: “Humans will not ‘outcompute’ AI in the long run. But humans using and managing AI effectively… will outperform humans alone and autonomous AI alone. The mantra of the young marketer should be, ‘am I managing AI for outcomes (good), or am I using it merely as an answer engine vending machine to do my work (bad).’”

Sharapata distills it into identity: “Stop building your career around the ‘how’ of marketing… Become the person who directs the agents, not the one doing the button-pushing.”

And Ramirez keeps it human: “AI won’t replace people who think critically, understand context, and apply judgment; it will replace tasks, not talent.”

The Uncomfortable Truth

Across four installments of this series, a clear narrative has emerged.

The age of AI experimentation is over. The age of AI operations has begun.

In 2026, marketing will not be defined by who buys the most technology, but by who redesigns themselves most courageously around it. It will not reward those who shout the loudest about innovation, but those who quietly build systems of trust, data discipline, and human judgment.

The real controversy is not whether AI will transform marketing.

It’s whether most marketers will transform fast enough to matter.

The post Part 4: The Future of Marketing Isn’t Smarter Tools — It’s Smaller Human Teams appeared first on MartechView.

In the theater of global commerce, the “steady state” has vanished. As we move toward 2026, marketing and customer experience (CX) are no longer just growth departments—they are the front lines of corporate survival.

Innovation that once took years now happens in weeks. To navigate this velocity, intuition is insufficient; leaders require a compass forged from hard-earned wisdom rather than hype. We are already seeing this shift in Agentic CX, where AI moves from answering questions to proactively solving problems, and in the rise of Data Dignity, where privacy is treated as a core brand value.

At MartechView, we have convened a council of the industry’s most rigorous minds to provide that roadmap. From consolidating the fragmented tech stack to the emergence of hyper-local predictive modeling, these visionaries are laying the blueprints for what comes next.

As we introduce our 2025 Expert Contributors, we recognize these leaders as the stewards of a new era. Their insights remind us that while our tools are undergoing a radical metamorphosis, the objective remains timeless: to serve the customer with precision, empathy, and integrity.

The list follows below.

Adam Greco, Product Evangelist, Hightouch

Adam Greco is a Product Evangelist at Hightouch, where he champions Composable CDP and AI Decisioning. With a profound background in digital analytics, he’s recognized for authoring the definitive book on Adobe Analytics and founding the free Search Discovery Education Community. Greco empowers companies to extract maximum value from their digital data, continually pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the field.

Articles: Adam Greco on the Future of CDPs: AI, Data Activation, and the Composable Revolution | How Well Do You Understand Digital Analytics?

Alex Abbott, Operatinalising Conversation Creation, Supero

Alex Abbott created the Conversation Operating System, an AI-powered method to solve the B2B pipeline crisis affecting most companies today. With over three decades of sales experience spanning three continents, Abbott has built and transformed businesses, leading them to multi-million-dollar success. A health enthusiast, golf lover, and proud dog dad to six Miniature Dachshunds, he now lives in Portugal, sharing his expertise through his community, “Walking Digital Corridors.” 

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Alexandra Caceres, Growth and Influencer Marketing Specialist, Metricool

Alexandra Caceres is a Growth and Influencer Marketing Specialist at Metricool, where she drives strategic partnerships and digital growth initiatives. With a strong foundation in social media and content strategy, she has held multiple roles at Metricool, including US Marketing Manager and Social Media Manager. Caceres also brings over four years of experience from Honeypot Social, where she led campaigns across diverse industries. She is passionate about brand storytelling and creator collaboration, blending creativity with data to deliver impactful marketing results.

Article: Metricool’s Growth Lead on Data, Influencers and AI’s Impact

Bill Schneider, VP of Product Marketing, CommerceIQ

Bill Schneider is the VP of Product Marketing at CommerceIQ, bringing over two decades of expertise in product marketing, communications, and AI-driven commerce solutions. Renowned for pioneering agentic AI and data-integrated strategies, he helps leading brands unlock automation, maximize profitability, and win competitive shelf share in e-commerce. Schneider’s insights regularly inform the commerce industry through research, benchmarking, and expert analysis, driving smarter performance for CPG leaders. He is recognized across the sector for his analytical rigor and forward-thinking leadership in the transformation of retail media.

Article: How CPG Leaders Used AI to Boost Prime Day Sales

Bob Walczak, CEO and Founder, MadConnect

Bob Walczak is the CEO and Founder of MadConnect, where he leads the charge in redefining platform-to-platform connectivity for the AdTech and MarTech industries. A visionary with over 20 years of experience, he has a proven track record of scaling high-tech startups and managing global product divisions for industry giants like WPP’s GroupM. Recognized as a pioneer in mobile advertising, Walczak previously built PubMatic’s mobile business into a $100 million revenue stream and founded Ringleader Digital, creator of the first comprehensive mobile ad server.

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Brian Burke, VP of Product, AtData

Brian Burke is VP of Product at AtData, a pioneer in email address intelligence and data security solutions. With over 20 years of experience in product management and software development, he leads product strategy for marketing solutions focused on email validation, identity resolution, and profile enrichment. Burke’s expertise helps marketers build actionable customer profiles, reduce fraud, and enhance data quality while ensuring compliance with privacy regulations. His leadership drives innovation in real-time email behavior analysis, boosting marketing ROI and combating email fraud.

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Bridget Reidy, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Exelon

Bridget Reidy serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Exelon, where she oversees information technology, corporate and information security, real estate, transportation, and supply operations for multiple utilities, including ComEd, PECO, and Pepco. With a career spanning leadership roles in supply chain, customer operations, and legal services, she has been instrumental in driving operational excellence and sustainable supply chain initiatives. Reidy previously held senior public service roles in Chicago, including Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley and COO of the Chicago Housing Authority. She is recognized for her strategic approach to security, infrastructure, and corporate governance in the energy sector.

Article: Is Securing Utility Communications Possible Beyond Consumer Apps?

Bryan Cheung, Chief Executive Officer, Liferay

Bryan Cheung is a co-founder of Liferay and served as its Chief Executive Officer for nearly two decades, leading the company from its bootstrap beginnings to a nine-figure global enterprise. Under his leadership, Liferay evolved into a premier open-source provider of digital experience platforms, trusted by organizations like NASA and Airbus. A graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in Computer Science, Cheung recently transitioned to the role of Chief Marketing Officer, where he continues to steer the company’s strategic vision and global business development. He is a recognized advocate for “pragmatic innovation,” focusing on how technology can solve real-world business challenges while contributing social value.

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Bryan Hernandez, Director, Client Partners, RTB House

Bryan Hernandez is a Director of Client Partners at RTB House, where he leverages deep-learning technology to drive digital performance for global brands. With over 13 years of experience in the AdTech ecosystem, he has built a reputation for surpassing revenue targets through sophisticated performance marketing strategies and high-level client management. Prior to his role at RTB House, Hernandez held pivotal positions at industry leaders such as SteelHouse and Sizmek, where he specialized in navigating the complexities of programmatic advertising and cross-channel growth. His career is defined by a commitment to data-driven storytelling and helping clients master the shift from traditional digital buying to AI-powered optimization.

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Carlos Gil, Fractional CMO and Growth Strategist, Gil Media Co.

Carlos Gil is a former Brand Evangelist and U.S. Market Leader at GetResponse and current Fractional CMO and Growth Strategist of Gil Media Co. with nearly two decades of experience helping global brands and startups drive growth through innovative, ROI-focused marketing. A bestselling author of The End of Marketing and LinkedIn Top Voice, Gil is known for blending old-school strategy with modern digital tools. He’s a sought-after speaker at global events like SXSW and SMMW and a master of turning bold storytelling into revenue-generating campaigns. Gil is a connector at his core, empowering brands to stand out and scale with authenticity.

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Chris Bretschger, Managing Partner, Bastion Agency

Chris Bretschger is Managing Partner at Bastion Amplify, a full-service digital marketing agency. With over 20 years of integrated marketing experience, he has led brand development, data-driven campaigns, and analytics strategies for major clients, including Mazda, Adidas, and Kia. Chris combines creativity with technical insights in SEO, SEM, social media, and content marketing to deliver measurable results. Beyond marketing, he is passionate about mentoring teams and sailing, embodying a spirit of leadership and innovation.

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Chris Chib, Founder and CEO, BlueFin Solves

Chris Chib is the Founder and CEO of BlueFin Solves, where he helps organizations navigate the intersection of digital transformation and operational strategy. With a career rooted in solving complex business challenges, Chib is a recognized voice on how companies can move beyond the “speculative” phase of technology to build practical solutions. These AI-driven systems enhance both employee productivity and the customer experience. In his recent contributions, Chib has emphasized the “new rules of business adaptation,” arguing that AI’s actual value lies in its ability to extend human capability rather than replace it. He advocates for a strategic shift toward “predictive agility,” helping brands move from reacting to market shifts to anticipating them through smarter data modeling and ethical governance.

Article: Using Behavioral Data to Drive Authentic Customer Relationships in a Digital World

Chris Gladwin, Founder and Executive Chairman, Ocient

is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Ocient, a leader in hyperscale data analytics. A serial entrepreneur with a legendary track record in the storage and data sectors, he previously founded Cleversafe, which he scaled into a dominant force in object storage before its acquisition by IBM for $1.3 billion. His career is defined by a relentless focus on solving “impossible” data problems for the world’s largest enterprises. A graduate of MIT, Gladwin holds hundreds of patents and is a central figure in the Chicago tech ecosystem.

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Christopher Morse, Vice President of Platform Partnerships, Alliant – The Audience Company

Christopher Morse is the Vice President of Platform Partnerships at Alliant – The Audience Company, where he sits at the vital intersection of data providers, adtech platforms, and media agencies. With over 15 years of experience in the data and digital advertising space, Chris has built a career on transforming complex consumer data into actionable audience solutions for high-growth brands. Throughout his tenure at Alliant and previous leadership roles at firms like Stirista and Windfall, Morse has been a key architect in the shift toward privacy-conscious, data-driven targeting. His expertise lies in navigating the evolving cookieless landscape and developing strategic alliances that allow marketers to reach high-value audiences with precision across the programmatic and social ecosystems.

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Daniel Baven, CEO and Co-Founder, Noahs

Daniel Baven is the CEO and Co-Founder of Noahs, a food-tech pioneer building what he calls the “Spotify of Food.” A Danish-trained chef turned entrepreneur, Daniel is redefining the food economy by deploying digitized, modular smart-kitchens into high-traffic hubs like service stations and supermarkets, allowing retailers to stream culinary brands directly to consumers. Before launching Noahs, Baven founded Lucky 13 Sandwich in Thailand, scaling it to over 20 locations before returning to Denmark to solve the infrastructure challenges of the modern food industry. His vision treats culinary IP as a digital asset, enabling great food brands to scale globally through a network of licensees. Today, he leads a 40-person team dedicated to bridging the gap between traditional retail and the emerging digital food marketplace.

Article: The Spotify of Food? How Noahs Plans to Rewrite Retail, Restaurants, and the Future of Eating

David Joosten, Co-founder and President, GrowthLoop

David Joosten is the Co-founder and President of GrowthLoop, a pioneering composable CDP leveraging the data cloud and AI to revolutionize marketing. With a passion for empowering marketers, he’s dedicated to transforming teams into agile experimenters by removing data friction and unlocking insights from first-party data. Joosten’s entrepreneurial spirit, combined with his experience advising major brands and background at Google, drives his commitment to building intelligent, data-driven customer journeys.

Articles: David Joosten Reveals AI and Data Blueprint for Privacy-First Marketing | Death of Third-Party Data: A New Era for Marketers

David Raab, Former Founder, CDP Institute

David Raab is the Founder of the CDP Institute and the expert who coined the term “Customer Data Platform” in 2013. A leading authority in marketing technology and analytics, he helps organizations navigate the evolving landscape of customer data, personalization, and privacy. Raab is known for his clear-eyed insights on the role of CDPs in an AI-driven world and continues to shape the conversation on how brands use data to drive meaningful engagement. Through the CDP Institute, he empowers businesses to make smarter tech decisions and unlock the full value of their customer data.

Articles: From CDP Pioneer to AI-Powered Future: A Chat with David Raab | Demystifying CDP: Finding Value Amid the Hype

Dean de la Peña, VP of Identity, Data Strategy and SaaS, Resonate

Dean de la Peña is a highly experienced VP of Identity, Data Strategy, and SaaS at Resonate. He is known for building outstanding teams and scaling technology and AI companies. With over 16 years of success, he played a key role in Mastercard’s $600M acquisition of Applied Predictive Technologies. He champions the combination of human empathy with data-driven analytics to uncover the truth, demonstrating a strong track record of driving significant revenue growth and client profitability.

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Deborah Knight, Customer Success and Experience Coach, Founder, Kaptive CX

Deborah Knight is the Customer Success and Experience Coach and Founder of Kaptive CX, leveraging over two decades of expertise to craft compelling customer experiences and drive growth. She excels at developing high-performance strategies and boasts a proven track record in customer retention, evidenced by her global impact on Doctify’s customer strategy. Knight is also passionate about coaching and helping teams take ownership of financial metrics, thereby thriving while implementing scalable digital-first initiatives that enhance engagement and efficiency.

Article: What Does Modern Customer Experience Look Like in 2025?

Edward Barnfield, Partner, Abu Dhabi, Wallis

Edward Barnfield is a Partner at Wallis, a leading communications firm serving the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia. With over 20 years of experience in corporate communications, he specializes in crisis management, strategic advisory, and media relations. Barnfield is known for his ability to craft clear, reliable narratives that resonate with diverse audiences and navigate complex regional dynamics. His expertise helps global tech brands manage reputation in fast-evolving environments.

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Eleanor Hecks, Editor-in-Chief, Designerly Magazine

Eleanor Hecks is Editor-in-Chief of Designerly Magazine, where she champions thoughtful design and editorial innovation. With a career spanning editorial leadership and digital content strategy, Hecks focuses on creating authentic, user-centric stories that engage creative professionals and marketers alike. She is passionate about privacy, personalization, and the evolving role of marketers in a data-conscious world.

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Elizabeth Maxson, CMO, Contentful

Elizabeth Maxson is Chief Marketing Officer at Contentful, driving brand strategy and product marketing for one of the leading content platforms. With extensive experience in agile marketing, AI composability, and creative innovation, Maxson spearheads initiatives that align marketing with customer-centric digital transformation. She is recognized for blending creativity and technology to accelerate business growth and deliver seamless customer experiences.

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Filippo Gramigna, Co-CEO, Onetag

Filippo Gramigna is the Co-CEO of Onetag, where he leverages over 20 years of international leadership experience to drive the evolution of programmatic advertising. A multidisciplinary expert, Filippo has navigated the full spectrum of the digital media ecosystem, holding pivotal roles across major publishers, global AdTech firms, and agencies to drive high-efficiency commercial results. His career is defined by a consultative approach to business development, blending deep expertise in partnerships and marketing with a sharp focus on product innovation. At Onetag, he leverages a vast global network to deliver tech-driven solutions that prioritize transparency and performance. Gramigna is recognized for his ability to rapidly scale complex projects, turning emerging digital trends into concrete economic value for brands and media owners alike.

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Gavin Sweeney, Chief Revenue Officer, CarTrawler

Gavin Sweeney is Chief Revenue Officer at CarTrawler, leading the trading, data science, and insights teams at this leading B2B technology provider for global car rental and mobility solutions. With a background in economics and digital marketing, Sweeney has over a decade of experience driving commercial performance and strategic growth in the travel and gaming sectors. He excels in leveraging data-driven analytics and market insights to optimize partner car hire propositions and revenue.

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Gianluca Ferruggia, General Manager – B2B Marketplace and Media Growth, DesignRush

Gianluca Ferruggia is the General Manager at DesignRush, a leading B2B marketplace that connects businesses with verified agencies. With a decade of experience, he’s an expert in B2B marketplaces known for building projects from inception and driving significant growth, including a 3,200% revenue increase for DesignRush. Ferruggia oversees all aspects of operations, content, digital marketing, SEO, finance, and sales, leading a team of 130 employees while also contributing editorially to Forbes Councils.

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Greg Zakowicz, Former Sr. Ecommerce Expert, Omnisend

Greg Zakowicz is a former Senior E-Commerce Expert at Omnisend, where he helps brands accelerate growth through customer-centric marketing strategies. With deep experience across B2B and DTC, Zakowicz is recognized for translating data-driven insights into actionable campaigns that drive engagement and revenue growth. He’s a trusted voice in the e-commerce space, frequently sharing expertise on automation, retention, and omnichannel marketing. Passionate about brand-building and employee-first leadership, Zakowicz brings both strategic vision and hands-on know-how to the digital marketing world.

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Guru Hariharan, Founder and CEO, CommerceIQ

Guru Hariharan is the CEO of CommerceIQ, a company that specializes in AI-powered retail solutions, helping brands enhance their e-commerce performance and profitability. He brings extensive leadership experience in product innovation, AI integration, and go-to-market strategy for retail and consumer tech companies. Hariharan focuses on empowering brands with intelligent automation to close sales gaps and optimize supply chains in a rapidly evolving digital marketplace.

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Guy Marion, CMO, Chargebee

Guy Marion is the Chief Marketing Officer at Chargebee, a role he’s held since April 2023, following his tenure as General Manager of Chargebee Retention (formerly Brightback, which he founded). A revenue-focused SaaS leader, he boasts extensive experience in growing Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) from $0M to $150M. Marion specializes in defining unique go-to-market strategies, building world-class teams, and accelerating revenue through diverse sales channels, with expertise spanning marketing, product, growth, and sales functions across various SaaS domains.

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Heidi Bullock, CMO, Tealium

Heidi Bullock is the Chief Marketing Officer at Tealium, where she drives go-to-market strategy and revenue growth across the customer lifecycle. A seasoned SaaS marketing leader, she brings deep expertise in demand generation, ABM, and product marketing. Bullock has led high-performing teams across SDR, enablement, and digital strategy, delivering measurable impact through data-driven campaigns. She’s a passionate advocate for customer-centric marketing and a recognized expert in platforms like Marketo, 6Sense, and SFDC.

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Irina Shamkova, Chief Product Officer, Intermedia Cloud Communications

Irina Shamkova is the Chief Product Officer at Intermedia Cloud Communications, where she leads the company’s end-to-end product strategy across its UCaaS, CCaaS, and cloud business application offerings. With over two decades at Intermedia, she has played a pivotal role in expanding its AI-powered communication platform and forging key partnerships, including a global alliance with NEC. Shamkova is known for building high-performing product teams and championing innovation through strategic acquisitions and internal initiatives, such as Women of Intermedia. Her leadership continues to shape how businesses connect and collaborate in today’s digital-first world.

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Isabelle Zdatny, Head of Thought Leadership for XM Institute, Qualtrics 

Isabelle Zdatny is the Head of Thought Leadership at the Qualtrics XM Institute, where she serves as a primary architect of the Experience Management (XM) discipline. A Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), Zdatny specializes in translating complex human behaviors into actionable business strategies, helping organizations bridge the gap between customer expectations and operational reality. At the XM Institute, she leads the production of industry-standard research and frameworks that empower leaders to improve both customer and employee experiences (CX and EX). Beyond her research, Isabelle is a sought-after speaker and advisor, recognized for her ability to simplify the evolving XM landscape into precise, high-impact blueprints for corporate success.

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James Evans, Senior Director, Head of AI, Amplitude

James Evans serves as Director and Head of AI at Amplitude, where he leads AI strategy and product development for the customer analytics platform. His expertise lies in designing and scaling AI solutions that enhance product intelligence, customer insights, and data-driven decision-making. Evans is recognized for advancing the role of machine learning in transforming how companies understand user behavior and optimize digital experiences.

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Jane Qin Medeiros, GM/EVP – Brand and Content, Informa TechTarget

Jane Qin Medeiros serves as GM/EVP of the Brand and Content Solutions Group at Informa TechTarget, where she leads initiatives that help B2B brands navigate complex marketing landscapes. With deep expertise in content strategy and demand generation, she focuses on bridging insights and execution to drive measurable impact for clients. She frequently shares thought leadership on effective B2B marketing strategies and navigating the “dark funnel.”

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Jason Swartz, VP, Advanced Advertising, New Business, And National Sales, New York Interconnect

Jason Swartz is Vice President of Addressable Television and Digital at New York Interconnect, where he drives innovation in precision-targeted advertising across linear and streaming platforms. With extensive experience in programmatic TV and digital media, Swartz helps brands harness data-driven strategies to reach audiences more effectively. He regularly contributes insights on the evolving landscape of streaming and addressable advertising.

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Jeff Kaplan, CEO, TARA Media Strategies

Jeff Kaplan is the CEO and Co-Founder of TARA Media Strategies (formerly Popsycle Digital), a data-driven performance marketing agency. With 25 years of experience, he’s an award-winning marketing professional with deep expertise in direct marketing, sales, and management. A self-proclaimed “data geek,” Kaplan is passionate about leveraging insights to help companies reach their full potential and achieve their client goals in the ever-evolving omnichannel marketing ecosystem.

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Jennifer McAdams, Fractional CMO, Marketing Advisor, Principal, Beecher Hollow Group

Jennifer McAdams is a seasoned marketing executive with over two decades of experience driving growth at leading enterprise software companies. Most recently, as Chief Marketing Officer at Xactly, she has held senior roles at Vista Equity Partners, Progress, and SAP SuccessFactors, where she led high-impact demand generation and go-to-market initiatives. Known for building scalable marketing engines and aligning cross-functional teams, McAdams brings deep expertise in B2B SaaS, digital strategy, and revenue marketing.

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Joey Petracca, COO and Co-Founder, Chicory

Joey Petracca is the Co-founder and COO of Chicory, a leading contextual commerce advertising platform. He has been instrumental in the company’s growth since its inception in 2012, helping to transform recipe content into commerce media for CPG brands, retailers, and publishers. Joey’s expertise lies in the future of grocery and food technology innovation, focusing on how data strategies can empower marketers to drive growth. He oversees product and engineering, and plays a key role in the conception, development, and positioning of Chicory’s advertising solutions.

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Josh Johnson, Area VP of Sales – Identity and Data Solutions, Dun & Bradstreet

Josh Johnson is Area Vice President of Data Licensing at Dun & Bradstreet, specializing in helping marketers unlock the power of unified customer profiles. With expertise in data strategy and analytics, Jonson focuses on enabling businesses to bridge data silos and drive smarter, more personalized marketing decisions. He frequently shares insights on how accurate, connected data fuels measurable growth.

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Justin Choi, Founder and CEO, Nativo

Justin Choi is the Founder and CEO of Nativo, where he leads the company in redefining native advertising through innovative, AI-driven solutions. With a strong background in ad tech and digital media, Choi focuses on leveraging agentic AI to transform how brands engage audiences and optimize campaigns. He is a recognized thought leader in the intersection of AI and advertising.

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Katie Spurkeland, Director of Product Marketing, Partnerize

Katie Spurkeland is Director of Product Marketing at Partnerize, where she drives strategies to unlock growth through partnerships and mobile engagement. With expertise in tracking, analytics, and performance marketing, Spurkeland helps brands maximize revenue and optimize partner-driven campaigns. She frequently shares insights on how data and technology power modern partnership marketing.

Article: Unlocking Mobile Growth: Why Tracking Powers Partnerships

Kevin O’Malley, Co-Founder, AdDaptive

Kevin O’Malley is the Co-Founder of AdDaptive Intelligence, a leading account-based advertising platform he started in March 2010. He has been instrumental in building a company focused on bridging offline and online data to optimize B2B advertising campaigns. His vision ensures that transparent analytics helps B2B marketers reach key accounts and decision-makers effectively. Under his leadership, AdDaptive has remained self-funded, driving continuous profitability and expansion in the ad tech industry.

Article: Why Marketers Need a Data Diet in the Age of AI Overload

Lee Hammond, Customer Data Strategy and Solutions, KLH

Lee Hammond is an accomplished marketing technology professional who previously served as an industry principal at the Marketing Data Cloud Practice in Hakkoda. In that role, he specialized in helping companies build modern marketing technology stacks on top of Snowflake’s Data Cloud. His expertise lies in customer data activation, having also optimized MarTech stacks at Universal Music Group to unify fan data and personalize experiences. Currently, as a Customer Data Strategy and Solutions consultant at KLH, Hammond continues to guide organizations toward a warehouse-first approach for their customer data, offering strategic recommendations and solutions.

Article: Is Your CDP a Dinosaur in a Composable World?

Lisa Sharapata, VP AI & GTM Strategy, Metadata

Lisa Sharapata is the VP of AI & GTM Strategy at Metadata, where she leads the transformation of modern marketing through AI-driven digital advertising. A seasoned B2B leader with over 20 years of experience, Lisa has built her career at the intersection of brand strategy and demand generation, helping companies move away from manual, repetitive tasks toward high-impact, automated business growth. Prior to joining Metadata, Sharapata held executive leadership roles at companies such as 6sense and Aprimo, where she became a prominent voice in the movement for “customer-centric” go-to-market strategies. She is widely recognized for her ability to align marketing and sales teams under a unified, data-driven vision, ensuring that technology serves as a bridge to deeper buyer engagement rather than just a tool for volume.

Article: Ghost Signals: Why Bad Data is Sabotaging Your GTM Strategy

Liz Carter, CMO, Reputation

Liz Carter is a highly experienced Chief Marketing Officer at Reputation, a leader in software technology and services. With a robust background in the SaaS industry, she has hands-on experience navigating IPO processes, acquisitions, and integrations for both venture-backed and PE-backed businesses. Carter is skilled in various facets of marketing, including corporate communications, branding, demand generation, and multi-channel strategies. She is also a dedicated Board Member at Razing the Bar, supporting underserved youth populations.

Article: “Your Brand Is What Barbara Says It Is”: Liz Carter on the Feedback-Fueled Future of Marketing

Maor Sadra, CEO & Co-founder, INCRMNTAL

Maor Sadra is the CEO and Co-Founder of INCRMNTAL, where he is pioneering a new era of marketing measurement through causal data science. An AdTech veteran with over 20 years of experience, Maor previously held executive roles at Applift and Inneractive, where he managed large-scale international business development and mergers and acquisitions. At INCRMNTAL, Sadra has developed a platform that measures the “true value” of ad spend across digital and offline channels without relying on user-level tracking. A vocal advocate for transparency, he specializes in replacing flawed attribution models with real-time, algorithmic insights that prove the actual impact of marketing investment.

Article: Big Spikes, Small Truths: The Myth of Promo-Day Performance

Marcelo Parravicini, Chairman and CEO, Cygnus Marketing Communications Inc.

Marcelo Parravicini is Chairman and CEO of Cygnus Marketing Communications Inc., where he leads strategies to enhance operational efficiency and optimize enrollment systems. With extensive experience in marketing operations and client-focused solutions, Parravicini helps organizations implement scalable frameworks that drive measurable results. He frequently shares insights on the intersection of marketing strategy and operational execution.

Article: Why Enrollment Systems Fail Without an Operational Blueprint

Marianna Mankle, SCMS, Siege Media

Marianna Mankle is an SCMS at Siege Media, a prominent agency specializing in SEO, content marketing, and digital PR. With a strong passion for storytelling, she focuses on harnessing this “superpower” to help companies achieve their marketing and SEO goals. Mankle brings a solid background in content creation, strategy, editing, and project management, previously serving as a Senior Content Marketing Specialist and Content Strategist. She leverages her expertise to craft compelling narratives that resonate with audiences and drive organic growth.

Article: Why Sales Teams Can’t Afford to Skip AI Training

Mateusz Jędrocha (MJ), Chief Product Officer, Adlook

Mateusz Jędrocha is the Chief Product Officer at Adlook, where he leads the development of next-generation, cookieless advertising solutions. A dynamic leader with a rare blend of commercial and technical expertise, Jedrocha has spent over a decade at the forefront of the programmatic ecosystem, specializing in privacy-first brand growth and high-performance automation. Before joining Adlook, he held key leadership roles at Yieldbird, where he mastered the complexities of revenue optimization and yield management for global publishers. Today, Jedrocha is a central figure in the shift toward “Deep Learning” in AdTech, helping brands navigate the transition to a privacy-centric internet while maintaining the precision and scale required for modern marketing.

Article: Is Advertising Finally Trading Hype for Clarity?

Matt Blumberg, CEO, Markup AI

Matt Blumberg is the CEO of Markup AI, where he applies nearly three decades of experience to scaling disruptive technology businesses. A seasoned serial entrepreneur, Matt has been at the helm of internet-based companies since 1995, spanning sectors including martech, analytics, cybersecurity, and recruitment. Throughout his career, Blumberf has navigated a diverse array of business models, including SaaS, AI, and marketplaces, in both B2B and DTC environments. At Markup AI, he focuses on leveraging artificial intelligence to streamline and automate complex workflows, helping modern enterprises operate with greater speed and precision.

Article: Can AI Fix the “Workslop” It Created?

Nadjya Ghausi, CMO, SearchStax

Nadjya Ghausi is Chief Marketing Officer at SearchStax, where she leads initiatives to help brands engage the search-first consumer. With deep expertise in search technology, digital marketing, and customer experience, Ghausi focuses on enabling marketers to deliver relevant, data-driven experiences. She regularly shares insights on optimizing search strategies in an evolving digital landscape.

Article: Marketers, Are You Ready for the Search-First Consumer?

Natalie Severt, Marketing Director, Intelligent Relations

Natalie Severt is a dynamic Marketing Director at Intelligent Relations, specializing in AI public relations and SaaS. With over 8 years in SEO management and 11 years in content management, she’s an expert at crafting and executing comprehensive marketing and PR strategies that drive brand awareness, traffic, leads, and ultimately, sales. Severt excels at integrating diverse marketing channels—including social media, email, and product marketing—to achieve impactful results and has a proven track record of boosting organic traffic and conversion rates.

Article: What Do AI-Driven News Feeds Mean for PR?

Natasha Desai, Vice President, Product & Engineering, Doceree

Natasha Desai is the Vice President of Product & Engineering at Doceree, bringing over a decade of experience driving innovation across healthtech, edtech, and advertising. A dynamic leader with a flair for data-driven strategy and cross-functional collaboration, she’s led product teams at Microsoft, Xandr, and CanFigureIt. Desai blends creativity and precision—on and off the clock—as a longtime Doonya Bollywood dance instructor. She’s passionate about building products that are as joyful as they are impactful.

Article: AdTech 2025: AI and Data Drive Marketing’s Future

Pavel Yurovitskiy, Chief Strategy Advisor & Chairman of the Board, KIT Global

Pavel Yurovitskiy is the Chief Strategy Advisor & Chairman of the Board at KIT Global, having previously served as CEO for nearly three years. He is dedicated to guiding the company’s long-term vision and global expansion into new markets, focusing on AI-driven campaign execution, first-party data solutions, and real-time analytics. Yurovitskiy’s approach is driven by bold thinking and data-informed strategies, building impactful partnerships and fostering a culture of diversity, excellence, and innovation within the multicultural team.

Article: AI Transparency: The Next Competitive Advantage

Peo Persson, Co-Founder, DanAds

Peo Persson is the Co-founder of DanAds, a global leader in white-label self-serve ad tech platforms empowering publishers and brands to streamline direct advertising. With a sharp focus on infrastructure software and first-party data solutions, Persson brings over a decade of entrepreneurial and digital strategy expertise. He co-founded Hybris Empire, supporting bold innovators shaping the next tech era. Based in Sweden with strong ties to New York, Persson is passionate about building scalable, user-centric platforms that transform media monetization.

Article: 2025 Ad Trends: AI, Regulation, and Social Media Shifts

Priya Gill, CMO, Iterable

Priya Gill is the CMO of Iterable and former Vice President and Head of Global Marketing at SurveyMonkey, leading a 95+ person team across all marketing functions. Reporting directly to the CEO, she’s focused on strengthening market position and driving revenue for both self-serve and enterprise businesses. With a strong background in product marketing, web strategy, and global experience, including significant roles at Box, Gill is adept at driving incremental revenue through strategic launches and business transformations across diverse global markets.

Article: AI in Marketing: Balance Tech with Human Touch for Impact

Rebecca Peel, Senior Digital PR Account Director, Tank

Rebecca Peel is Tank‘s Senior Digital PR Account Director, leading strategic campaigns that deliver powerful media impact for brands. With nearly a decade of experience spanning digital PR, content, and communications, she’s known for securing top-tier coverage and building meaningful media relationships. Prior to Tank, Peel held senior roles at Hallam and Proactive International PR, driving growth for clients across tech and lifestyle sectors. Her storytelling roots trace back to journalism, where she sharpened her eye for news and narrative.

Article: Cracking the PR Code: Why Your Best Stories Are Hiding in Your Data

Richard Hanscott, CEO, Esendex

Richard Hanscott is the CEO of Esendex and Commify, leading a global portfolio of business messaging brands trusted by over 45,000 businesses. With over two decades of leadership experience across telecom, digital marketing, and enterprise communications, he’s known for driving growth, transformation, and customer-centric innovation. Prior to Commify, Hanscott was CEO at Yell, where he spearheaded its shift to a leading digital services provider for SMBs. He is passionate about making business communication brilliant, scalable, and impactful across markets.

Article: WhatsApp for Business: Beyond Messaging to Customer Engagement

Ron Kaufman, Chief Executive Officer, Uplifting Service

Ron Kaufman is the CEO of Uplifting Service and a globally recognized authority on the psychology of service excellence. Voted the world’s “#1 Customer Service Guru” for five consecutive years, Kaufman has spent decades helping organizations such as Singapore Airlines, Microsoft, and Changi Airport develop self-sustaining service cultures that drive both profit and human well-being. As the author of the New York Times bestseller Uplifting Service, Kaufman advocates for a radical shift in how businesses view “service”—moving it from a department to a core cultural value. His work focuses on transforming service into a competitive advantage, helping leaders navigate a hyper-competitive landscape where customer loyalty is the only true currency of growth.

Article: Why ‘Customer-Centricity’ is the Wrong Question (and What Leaders Should Ask Instead)

Ron Levac, Chief Innovation Officer, Spectrio

Ron Levac is the Chief Innovation Officer at Spectrio, where he leads the effort to bridge the gap between digital strategy and physical retail environments. With a career dedicated to the evolution of “responsive technology,” Levac specializes in leveraging IoT sensors and real-time shopper analytics to transform static stores into hyper-relevant, data-driven experiences. As a former leader at InReality, Levac has a deep pedigree in helping brands and retailers decode in-store behavior to maximize revenue and optimize marketing spend. Today, he oversees Spectrio’s innovation roadmap, focusing on implementing the technical efficiencies and cutting-edge methodologies that allow modern organizations to remain competitive in a rapidly shifting omnichannel landscape.

Article: Is the Store the Next Big Media Channel?

Ross Lewis, Partnerships and Ecosystem Strategy, IPinfo.io

Ross Lewis leads Partnerships and Ecosystem Strategy at IPinfo.io, where he is architecting the next generation of data distribution. A modern sales professional with a focus on long-term relational value, Lewis specializes in building scalable programs that integrate IPinfo’s industry-leading intelligence into diverse global channels. His work is centered on the “omnichannel data” approach—ensuring that high-fidelity IP data is accessible and actionable across all platforms and ecosystems. By designing a distributed network of partnerships, Lewis helps businesses leverage location and network insights to power everything from cybersecurity and fraud detection to hyper-localized marketing experiences.

Article: Adtech’s New Secret Weapon: The IP Signal

Ruchika Batra, Director of Content Marketing & SEO, Birdeye

Ruchika Batra is the Director of Content Marketing & SEO at Birdeye, where she drives strategic content initiatives to fuel demand generation and elevate customer experience. With deep expertise in SaaS marketing, she blends content strategy, SEO, and product messaging to deliver business impact and sales enablement. Batra is known for crafting high-conversion content journeys that resonate with B2B audiences. Outside of work, she channels her creativity into whimsical ceramic pottery.

Article: AI, Storytelling and Trends: Ruchika Batra on Content Marketing

Sai Koppala, CMO, CommerceIQ

Sai Koppala is Chief Marketing Officer at CommerceIQ, where he drives strategies to optimize retail operations and maximize e-commerce growth. With expertise in data-driven marketing, omnichannel retail, and AI-powered commerce solutions, Koppala helps brands navigate complex retail environments and improve performance. He frequently shares insights on modern retail trends and extended sales strategies.

Article: Is Longer Better? The Truth About Extended Retail Sales

Sarita Fernandes, VP of Product Management, Avaya

Sarita Fernandes is the VP of Product Management for the Avaya Infinity Platform, where she is architecting the product strategy for the next generation of customer experience. A veteran of the SaaS and cloud communications sector, Fernandes brings over 15 years of expertise in navigating the complex intersection of high-scale technology and human-centric brand strategy. Her career is defined by an ability to transform sophisticated product capabilities into clear, impactful go-to-market successes. At Avaya, she focuses on the “new era of CX,” helping global enterprises move beyond transactional support to build deep, meaningful connections through integrated communication ecosystems and intelligent automation.

Article: Connection Is the New Currency of Customer Experience

Scott Brinker, Analyst and Advisor, Chiefmartec

Scott Brinker is an analyst and advisor at Chiefmartec, renowned for his expertise at the intersection of marketing, technology, and strategy. He helps organizations navigate the evolving martech landscape, offering insights on integration, innovation, and industry trends. Brinker is widely recognized for his thought leadership on the future of marketing technology and its impact on business growth.

Article: Is MarTech Headed for a Great Merger or Splintered Future? Scott Brinker Has Thoughts

Stamatis Astra, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer, Intelligent Relations

Stamatis Astra is the Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Intelligent Relations, an AI-powered PR firm, where he focuses on product definition and market growth. He’s an expert at taking startups from inception to exit, leveraging AI to help clients secure media coverage, build online presence, and drive conversions. Beyond his entrepreneurial ventures, Astra is also a Venture Partner in private equity, investing in SaaS, IoT, and life-enriching applications, and co-hosts “Grecian Echoes,” a talk show on WNTN-1550 AM.

Article: Can AI in Retail Win Trust Before It Loses Customers?

Ted McNulty, VP of Sales, AdDaptive Intelligence

Ted McNulty is the Vice President of Sales at AdDaptive Intelligence, where he leverages over 20 years of experience to lead high-velocity revenue growth in the AdTech space. A specialist in scaling B2B organizations, McNulty is widely recognized for his ability to build high-performing sales cultures, famously driving a previous organization’s revenue from under $10 million to over $70 million. At AdDaptive, Ted focuses on the intersection of offline and online data, helping brands and agencies execute precise Account-Based Marketing (ABM) at scale. His expertise lies in navigating the complexities of the B2B buyer journey, ensuring that sophisticated data insights translate into measurable business outcomes and long-term client partnerships.

Article: The Canaries of Marketing’s AI Revolution

Thomas Vladeck, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Recast

Thomas Vladeck is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Recast, a marketing science platform that leverages Bayesian statistics and high-performance computing to automate marketing mix modeling (MMM). A practitioner at the intersection of statistics and causal inference, Tom built Recast to solve the “wasted spend” problem, providing brands with near-real-time visibility into the performance of both online and offline channels. Before co-founding Recast, Vladeck founded Gradient Metrics, a quantitative market research firm that provides data-driven strategies for global giants like Amazon, Nike, and McKinsey. An alumnus of Wharton and the London School of Economics, he has also served as an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, where he specializes in applying state-of-the-art data science to address real-world business challenges.

Article: Marketing Measurement Isn’t a Science — But It Can Be

Tilman Harmeling, Staff Strategy & Market Intelligence, Usercentrics

Tilman Harmeling is a leading voice in data privacy and strategy at Usercentrics, where he serves as Staff Strategy & Market Intelligence. With a career rooted in the intersection of finance, data analytics, and privacy, Harmeling specializes in navigating the technical and business complexities of global regulations like the GDPR and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). He is a pioneer of “Privacy-Led Marketing,” an approach that transforms compliance into a competitive advantage by prioritizing user trust and consent as core brand values. Harmeling is a sought-after speaker at major industry events, including OMR, DMEXCO, and PrivSec Global, and is recognized for his expertise in consent-based marketing, opt-in optimization, and the role of AI in preference management.

Article: How to Win Holiday Sales Without Losing Public Trust

Timm Chiusano, Author, Park & Fine Literary and Media, Creator, Night

Timm Chiusano is an author, creator, and former executive with over 20 years of experience at companies like ABC Sports, ESPN, and Charter Communications. He recently transitioned to focus on his purpose: empowering others to do their best work by being their best selves. A respected leader, Chiusano blends the art and science of marketing to drive dynamic business initiatives, excelling in P&L management, process development, and cross-platform marketing. His first book, HOW TO GET ADDICTED TO APPRECIATION, is set for publication in 2026.

Article: Why Brands Must Build Parasocial Bonds, Not Just Content

Timothy Hughes, CEO and Co-Founder, DLA Ignite

Timothy Hughes is the CEO and Co-founder of DLA Ignite, a pioneer in social selling and digital business transformation. With over eight years at the helm, he has helped global organizations modernize their sales and marketing strategies for the virtual era. A sought-after speaker and top-ranked thought leader, Hughes is also a content creator, RevOps advocate, and instructor featured by ThePowerMBA. His mission is to help businesses shift from analog to digital with measurable, people-led impact.

Article: The Shocking Truth About Your Sales Connections (and Why It’s Killing Deals)

Tomer Felach, Lead Fraud Analyst, DoubleVerify

Tomer Felach is Lead Fraud Analyst at DoubleVerify, specializing in digital media integrity and brand safety. With deep expertise in fraud detection, AI-driven analytics, and online advertising, Felach helps organizations identify and mitigate risks in digital campaigns. He frequently shares insights on emerging threats and maintaining trust in the digital advertising ecosystem.

Article: AI Is Fueling a Surge of Low Quality Recipe Sites

Toussaint Celestin, Principal, AI Product & Industry Marketing, Talkdesk

Toussaint Celestin is the Principal of AI Product & Industry Marketing at Talkdesk, leading the go-to-market strategy for AI-powered customer experience solutions. He crafts compelling product narratives, drives analyst relations, and champions industry social campaigns. With deep expertise in GenAI, LLMs, and conversational AI, Celestin has spearheaded successful product launches that enhance brand-customer interactions. He is recognized for his innovative and collaborative approach to marketing, as well as for shaping the future of CCaaS through his thought leadership.

Article: Elevating CX: How GenAI Bridges Legacy Systems and Innovation

Tyler Loechner, VP of Platform Growth, Pixalate

Tyler Loechner is Vice President of Platform Growth & Research at Pixalate, where he leads initiatives to advance programmatic advertising quality and transparency. With expertise in digital media analytics, fraud prevention, and platform growth strategies, Loechner helps brands and platforms make data-driven decisions to optimize performance. He frequently shares insights on trends shaping the programmatic and ad-tech ecosystem.

Article: Ad Fraud’s Evolving Game: Is Your Platform Ready?

Vanessa Horwell, Chief Strategy Officer, THINKINK

Vanessa Horwell is the Chief Strategy Officer and founder of THINKINK, a specialist communications firm she established over 19 years ago. With a deep passion for brand storytelling, she helps trailblazing companies in sectors such as aviation, hospitality, and retail enhance their visibility and drive tangible business outcomes through integrated PR and marketing programs. Horwell is an expert strategist and problem solver, leveraging her extensive international market knowledge and strong relationships with media and analysts across three continents to craft compelling narratives and impactful campaigns.

Article: Vanessa Horwell Cuts Through B2B Blah With Bold Clarity

Weston Clarke, Director, Product Management, Amplitude

Weston Clarke is a data-driven and customer-obsessed Director of Product Management at Amplitude, where he is actively defining the digital analytics category. With a background spanning computer science and consulting at Accenture, Clarke brings a wealth of experience from building early-stage products at UberEats and launching buy-side revenue products at Redfin. He excels at making product analytics a team sport, focusing on areas like reporting, content organization, and integrations to enhance collaboration.

Article: Personalization: How to Know Your Users’ “Why”?

Will Post, Vice President, Growth (Sales & Partnerships), Measured

Will Post is the Vice President of GTM (Sales and Partnerships) at Measured, bringing a strong track record of success in B2B sales and marketing. He excels at forging C-Level relationships, creating best-in-class marketing solutions, and optimizing strategies to drive client business. With diverse experience across CPG, financial services, and automotive sectors, Post is a proven leader focused on deepening partnerships and generating significant ROI.

Article: Are B2B Marketers Finally Moving Beyond Last-Click?

The post MartechView 2025 Contributors: Shaping the Future of Marketing appeared first on MartechView.

Globant announced the consolidation of all its marketing and advertising disciplines under GUT Network, bringing together capabilities across AI, Digital Marketing, Digital Consumer Experience, Social, Content, Media, Martech and Data Analytics, as well as specialized marketing services for Healthcare and Pharma.

The GUT Network will be led by Gastón Bigio and Anselmo Ramos, GUT co-founders, and Wanda Weigert, Globant Chief Marketing Officer. The decision to consolidate all its advertising and marketing capabilities for brands worldwide follows nearly two years of collaborative work and best practice sharing, following Globant’s acquisition of GUT in November 2023.

The move instantly augments GUT’s footprint, and headcount, more than doubling its size in terms of geographical reach, offerings, and staff.

Also, as of today, GUT Network is announcing the opening of two new fully operational offices in Bogotá, Colombia, and Copenhagen, Denmark. With 200+ professionals, GUT Bogotá will focus on full-funnel media, data analytics, and creativity. GUT Copenhagen comprises over 60 healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing experts and will operate as a center of excellence in pharma within the Network, with clients like Biogen and Alfasigma. These offices complement existing hubs in Miami, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Toronto, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Madrid, New York, and Singapore.

Also Read: The Future of Targeting Isn’t Audience or Contextual. It’s Quality.

GUT’s new marketing services capabilities will rely on the continued leadership of Pepe Chamorro, Fernando Martínez-Corbalán, Mads Krogh Petersen, Jorge Camargo, and Marwa Khalife.

GUT was named #2 Most Innovative Company in marketing and advertising by Fast Company in 2024. Since its inception in 2018, the agency’s strength has been helping brands generate a disproportionate amount of buzz, infiltrate pop culture, influence behaviors, foster long-term brand love and ultimately help solve clients’ biggest business challenges. In just seven years the agency has evolved from startup to global creative powerhouse, shaking up the advertising industry, earning global recognition, achieving multiple firsts, and taking home top honors at the most prestigious awards shows.

Globant and GUT started working together in 2020 when the digital consultancy chose the   independent creative agency as its creative partner. Since then, they’ve nurtured a strong partnership that was further cemented in November 2023 when Globant acquired GUT.

Together, Globant and GUT have ideated, developed, and executed campaigns for some of the world’s biggest and most beloved brands —leveraging the best of technology and creativity, while embedding AI at the core of marketing and creative solutions. This announcement aligns with Globant’s strategy of innovation and expansion, unlocking incredible new opportunities for GUT to continue fueling its exponential growth.

The enhanced GUT Network will now be able to offer more services to its strong roster of clients, including AB InBev, Mercado Libre, Tim Hortons, P&G, Kraft Heinz, Verizon, and Havaianas, among many others, while also gaining full access to Globant’s top clients like FIFA, F1, Electronic Arts, and Okta, among others.

GUT Co-founders, Gaston Bigio and Anselmo Ramos, said, “This latest move further demonstrates Globant’s confidence, support, and total commitment to the GUT brand and culture. For us, this is the realization of a powerful dream that began when we founded GUT in 2018. Expanding the GUT brand to new territories is the natural next step for us.”

Also Read: Is MarTech Headed for a Great Merger or Splintered Future? Scott Brinker Has Thoughts

“By bringing together all our marketing capabilities into one global and diverse team, we’re amplifying our ability to spark meaningful transformation across our clients”, said Wanda Weigert, Chief Marketing Officer at Globant. “More than ever before, GUT Network is a powerful and fully equipped creative ally, fueled by cutting-edge technologies and exceptional talent.”

Gaston Bigio and Anselmo Ramos, GUT co-founders, will now be part of Globant’s top management team that reports to Martin Migoya, Globant’s CEO and Co-founder. Andrea Diquez, GUT Global CEO and all the existing GUT leadership team will remain in their roles.

Both Globant and GUT are ranked among the top ten global organizations in their respective industries: Globant was named the 5th strongest IT brand globally by Brand Finance in 2024, and GUT was amongst the top 10 most awarded networks in Cannes Lions 2025 – together they are a powerful global creative tech company primed for even greater growth.

The post Globant Unites Marketing Power Under GUT Network appeared first on MartechView.

MartechView’s third edition brings together a diverse lineup of industry leaders, innovators, and sharp minds shaping the future of marketing, AI, data, and customer experience. From C-suite executives to analysts and thought leaders, these contributors share actionable insights on navigating complex digital landscapes, harnessing AI-driven solutions, and driving measurable growth. 

Whether it’s modern retail, programmatic advertising, content strategy, or unified customer data, this edition highlights expertise that blends creativity, technology, and strategy. Explore perspectives that decode emerging trends, reveal operational best practices, and illuminate how businesses can thrive in a rapidly evolving marketing and technology ecosystem.

Bill Schneider, VP of Product Marketing, CommerceIQ

Bill Schneider is the VP of Product Marketing at CommerceIQ, bringing over two decades of expertise in product marketing, communications, and AI-driven commerce solutions. Renowned for pioneering agentic AI and data-integrated strategies, he helps leading brands unlock automation, maximize profitability, and win competitive shelf share in e-commerce. Schneider’s insights regularly inform the commerce industry through research, benchmarking, and expert analysis, driving smarter performance for CPG leaders. He is recognized across the sector for his analytical rigor and forward-thinking leadership in the transformation of retail media.

Article: How CPG Leaders Used AI to Boost Prime Day Sales

Brian Burke, VP of Product, AtData

Brian Burke is VP of Product at AtData, a pioneer in email address intelligence and data security solutions. With over 20 years of experience in product management and software development, he leads product strategy for marketing solutions focused on email validation, identity resolution, and profile enrichment. Burke’s expertise helps marketers build actionable customer profiles, reduce fraud, and enhance data quality while ensuring compliance with privacy regulations. His leadership drives innovation in real-time email behavior analysis, boosting marketing ROI and combating email fraud.

Article: Is Your Email List Truly Clean?

Bridget Reidy, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Exelon

Bridget Reidy serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Exelon, where she oversees information technology, corporate and information security, real estate, transportation, and supply operations for multiple utilities, including ComEd, PECO, and Pepco. With a career spanning leadership roles in supply chain, customer operations, and legal services, she has been instrumental in driving operational excellence and sustainable supply chain initiatives. Reidy previously held senior public service roles in Chicago, including Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley and COO of the Chicago Housing Authority. She is recognized for her strategic approach to security, infrastructure, and corporate governance in the energy sector.

Article: Is Securing Utility Communications Possible Beyond Consumer Apps?

Chris Bretschger, Managing Partner, Bastion Agency

Chris Bretschger is Managing Partner at Bastion Amplify, a full-service digital marketing agency. With over 20 years of integrated marketing experience, he has led brand development, data-driven campaigns, and analytics strategies for major clients including Mazda, Adidas, and Kia. Chris combines creativity with technical insights in SEO, SEM, social media, and content marketing to deliver measurable results. Beyond marketing, he is passionate about mentoring teams and sailing, embodying a spirit of leadership and innovation.

Article: Using Behavioral Data to Drive Authentic Customer Relationships in a Digital World

Dean de la Peña, VP, Identity, Data Strategy and SaaS, Resonate

Dean de la Peña is a highly experienced VP of Identity, Data Strategy, and SaaS at Resonate. He is known for building outstanding teams and scaling technology and AI companies. With over 16 years of success, he played a key role in Mastercard’s $600M acquisition of Applied Predictive Technologies. He champions combining human empathy with data-driven analytics to uncover truth, demonstrating a strong track record in driving significant revenue growth and client profitability.

Article: How is AI Reshaping MarTech for a Privacy-First Future?

Edward Barnfield, Partner, Wallis

Edward Barnfield is a Partner at Wallis, a leading communications firm serving the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia. With over 20 years of experience in corporate communications, he specializes in crisis management, strategic advisory, and media relations. Barnfield is known for his ability to craft clear, reliable narratives that resonate with diverse audiences and navigate complex regional dynamics. His expertise helps global tech brands manage reputation in fast-evolving environments.

Article: The New Rules of Crisis Communication: Lessons from Global Tech Brands

Eleanor Hecks, Editor-in-Chief, Designerly Magazine

Eleanor Hecks is Editor-in-Chief of Designerly Magazine, where she champions thoughtful design and editorial innovation. With a career spanning editorial leadership and digital content strategy, Hecks focuses on creating authentic, user-centric stories that engage creative professionals and marketers alike. She is passionate about privacy, personalization, and the evolving role of marketers in a data-conscious world.

Article: Can Marketers Personalize Without Invading Privacy?

Elizabeth Maxson, CMO, Contentful

Elizabeth Maxson is Chief Marketing Officer at Contentful, driving brand strategy and product marketing for one of the leading content platforms. With extensive experience in agile marketing, AI composability, and creative innovation, Maxson spearheads initiatives that align marketing with customer-centric digital transformation. She is recognized for blending creativity and technology to accelerate business growth and deliver seamless customer experiences.

Article: Agile Marketers Win: Elizabeth Maxson on AI, Composability and Creativity

Gavin Sweeney, Chief Revenue Officer, CarTrawler

Gavin Sweeney is Chief Revenue Officer at CarTrawler, leading the trading, data science, and insights teams at this leading B2B technology provider for global car rental and mobility solutions. With a background in economics and digital marketing, Sweeney has over a decade of experience driving commercial performance and strategic growth in travel and gaming sectors. He excels in leveraging data-driven analytics and market insights to optimize partner car hire propositions and revenue.

Article: Can AI Finally Fix the Travel Planning Mess?

Guru Hariharan, CEO, CommerceIQ

Guru Hariharan is CEO of CommerceIQ, a company specializing in AI-powered retail solutions to help brands improve ecommerce performance and profitability. He brings extensive leadership experience in product innovation, AI integration, and go-to-market strategy for retail and consumer tech companies. Hariharan focuses on empowering brands with intelligent automation to close sales gaps and optimize supply chains in a rapidly evolving digital marketplace.

Article: The Treat Economy: How Small Luxuries Boost Retail Returns

James Evans, Director, Head of AI, Amplitude

James Evans serves as Director and Head of AI at Amplitude, where he leads AI strategy and product development for the customer analytics platform. His expertise lies in designing and scaling AI solutions that enhance product intelligence, customer insights, and data-driven decision-making. Evans is recognized for advancing the role of machine learning in transforming how companies understand user behavior and optimize digital experiences.

Article: James Evans on Amplitude’s Bold AI Vision and Strategy

Jane Qin Medeiros, GM/EVP – Brand and Content Solutions Group, Informa TechTarget

Jane Qin Medeiros serves as GM/EVP of the Brand and Content Solutions Group at Informa TechTarget, where she leads initiatives that help B2B brands navigate complex marketing landscapes. With deep expertise in content strategy and demand generation, she focuses on bridging insights and execution to drive measurable impact for clients. She frequently shares thought leadership on effective B2B marketing strategies and navigating the “dark funnel.”

Article: Is Your B2B Strategy Lost in the Dark Funnel?

Jason Swartz, Vice President of Addressable Television and Digital, New York Interconnect

Jason Swartz is Vice President of Addressable Television and Digital at New York Interconnect, where he drives innovation in precision-targeted advertising across linear and streaming platforms. With extensive experience in programmatic TV and digital media, Swartz helps brands harness data-driven strategies to reach audiences more effectively. He regularly contributes insights on the evolving landscape of streaming and addressable advertising.

Article: Streaming Ads Enter a New Era of Precision

Joshua Johnson, Area Vice President, Data Licensing, Dun & Bradstreet

Joshua Johnson is Area Vice President of Data Licensing at Dun & Bradstreet, specializing in helping marketers unlock the power of unified customer profiles. With expertise in data strategy and analytics, Jonson focuses on enabling businesses to bridge data silos and drive smarter, more personalized marketing decisions. He frequently shares insights on how accurate, connected data fuels measurable growth.

Article: Blurring Boundaries: Why Marketers Need Unified Profiles

Justin Choi, Founder and CEO, Nativo

Justin Choi is the Founder and CEO of Nativo, where he leads the company in redefining native advertising through innovative, AI-driven solutions. With a strong background in ad tech and digital media, Choi focuses on leveraging agentic AI to transform how brands engage audiences and optimize campaigns. He is a recognized thought leader in the intersection of AI and advertising.

Article: Is Agentic AI Turning Ads into On-Demand Services?

Katie Spurkeland, Director of Product Marketing, Partnerize

Katie Spurkeland is Director of Product Marketing at Partnerize, where she drives strategies to unlock growth through partnerships and mobile engagement. With expertise in tracking, analytics, and performance marketing, Spurkeland helps brands maximize revenue and optimize partner-driven campaigns. She frequently shares insights on how data and technology power modern partnership marketing.

Article: Unlocking Mobile Growth: Why Tracking Powers Partnerships

Marcelo Parravicini, CEO, Cygnus Marketing Communications Inc.

Marcelo Parravicini is CEO of Cygnus Marketing Communications Inc., where he leads strategies to enhance operational efficiency and optimize enrollment systems. With extensive experience in marketing operations and client-focused solutions, Parravicini helps organizations implement scalable frameworks that drive measurable results. He frequently shares insights on the intersection of marketing strategy and operational execution.

Article: Why Enrollment Systems Fail Without an Operational Blueprint

Nadjya Ghausi, CMO, SearchStax

Nadjya Ghausi is Chief Marketing Officer at SearchStax, where she leads initiatives to help brands engage the search-first consumer. With deep expertise in search technology, digital marketing, and customer experience, Ghausi focuses on enabling marketers to deliver relevant, data-driven experiences. She regularly shares insights on optimizing search strategies in an evolving digital landscape.

Article: Marketers, Are You Ready for the Search-First Consumer?

Sai Koppala, Chief Marketing Officer, CommerceIQ

Sai Koppala is Chief Marketing Officer at CommerceIQ, where he drives strategies to optimize retail operations and maximize e-commerce growth. With expertise in data-driven marketing, omnichannel retail, and AI-powered commerce solutions, Koppala helps brands navigate complex retail environments and improve performance. He frequently shares insights on modern retail trends and extended sales strategies.

Article: Is Longer Better? The Truth About Extended Retail Sales

Scott Brinker, Analyst & Advisor, Chiefmartec

Scott Brinker is an analyst and advisor at Chiefmartec, renowned for his expertise at the intersection of marketing, technology, and strategy. He helps organizations navigate the evolving martech landscape, offering insights on integration, innovation, and industry trends. Brinker is widely recognized for his thought leadership on the future of marketing technology and its impact on business growth.

Article: Is MarTech Headed for a Great Merger or Splintered Future? Scott Brinker Has Thoughts

Tomer Felach, Lead Fraud Analyst, DoubleVerify

Tomer Felach is Lead Fraud Analyst at DoubleVerify, specializing in digital media integrity and brand safety. With deep expertise in fraud detection, AI-driven analytics, and online advertising, Felach helps organizations identify and mitigate risks in digital campaigns. He frequently shares insights on emerging threats and maintaining trust in the digital advertising ecosystem.

Article: AI Is Fueling a Surge of Low Quality Recipe Sites

Tyler Loechner, VP of Platform Growth & Research, Pixalate

Tyler Loechner is Vice President of Platform Growth & Research at Pixalate, where he leads initiatives to advance programmatic advertising quality and transparency. With expertise in digital media analytics, fraud prevention, and platform growth strategies, Loechner helps brands and platforms make data-driven decisions to optimize performance. He frequently shares insights on trends shaping the programmatic and ad-tech ecosystem.

Article: Ad Fraud’s Evolving Game: Is Your Platform Ready?

The post Edition 3: Sharp Minds Decoding Tech’s Next Wave appeared first on MartechView.

Markup AI today announced $27.5 million financing, led by Genui Partners and EMH Partners and including Capital Factory and angel investors Brad Feld, Scott Dorsey, David Fox, Jake Heller, David Kidder, Bernd-Michael Rumpf, Greg Sands, and Kindra Tatarsky to accelerate the launch of the industry’s first Content Guardian AgentsSM.  Designed for companies racing to harness generative AI without compromising trust, these agents represent a breakthrough in adaptable, intelligent oversight for AI-generated content. 

“As we enter a new era of AI-generated content, organizations need new solutions to keep pace with the speed, scale, and risks,” said Matt Blumberg, CEO at Markup AI. “Today’s content requires purpose-built, AI-native content guardrails that don’t just check a box, but actively protect brand trust, compliance, and consistency in real-time.”

Why Content Guardian Agents, and Why Now 

Generative AI has unleashed an explosion of content that traditional review processes can’t keep up with. 87% of content marketers already use AI, yet most tools stop at spelling, grammar, or readability checks and are deployed without guardrails. The result is costly risk: copyright lawsuits up to $150,000 per work, defamation, false advertising, regulatory fines, and reputational damage. And this isn’t a handful of blog posts—enterprises operate at industrial scale with thousands of authors, dozens of LLMs, millions of pages, and vast policy and terminology libraries. Without automated oversight, risk compounds fast. 

According to Gartner by 2028, 40% of CIOs will demand guardian agents be available to autonomously track, oversee, or contain the results of AI agent actions. Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst Daryl Plummer said: “As agentic systems scale, gain more agency and become more complex, it becomes impossible for humans to intervene quickly enough to stop them from malfunctioning and becoming unmanageable. Therefore, AI must be used to understand and oversee AI agents to ensure they remain aligned with their intentions and operate in a safe, secure, and reliable manner.” 

Also Read: How Retailers Are Using AI in Marketing to Drive Store Visits and Offline Sales

Introducing Markup AI Content Guardian Agents 

Launched as a spinoff of NLP pioneer Acrolinx, Markup AI is the first to deliver an integrated suite of Content Guardian Agents purpose-built for enterprise use cases. Key innovations include: 

• Scan, Score, Rewrite – Agents automatically analyze content against brand, terminology, compliance, and industry standards, assign a deterministic trust score, and instantly provide actionable rewrites.
• Customizable Criteria – Enterprises can set governance rules (rewrite automatically or require human review) to balance efficiency and oversight.
• Developer-First Architecture – With an API-first, MCP-powered design, Content Guardian Agents integrate directly into the tools enterprises already use including Cursor, Figma, ChatGPT, Github Actions, Zapier, and more. These integrations deliver immediate compliance and quality checks without disrupting workflows.
• Enterprise-Ready Scalability – Built for mission-critical environments, Guardian Agents plug into CI/CD pipelines, authoring tools, and enterprise applications to guard content wherever it’s created and to automate content audits. 

Launching Five New AI Agents 

Markup AI also announced the launch of five specialized AI Agents, each designed to address a core element of content quality:

• Terminology Agent – Ensures consistent use of approved vocabulary and product language.
• Consistency Agent – Enforces editorial style and brand-specific conventions.
• Tone Agent – Adjusts communications to align with brand voice and audience expectations.
• Clarity Agent – Improves readability, removes jargon, and enhances comprehension.
• Spelling & Grammar Agent – Provides foundational accuracy in every piece of content.

These AI agents are bundled into the industry’s first Brand Guardian Agent that provides confidence that every word published is on-brand and compliant with a company’s standards.  

Early Adoption and Partnerships

Companies produce content everywhere across marketing, technical documentation, HR policies, customer success, help desk responses, training materials, and regulated communications. At this scale, organizations may have thousands of authors, dozens of AI tools in use, and millions of pages governed by hundreds of policies and terminology rules. Without oversight, the risks multiply quickly. 

Leading technology companies, including Amazon, Adobe, ServiceNow, Gainsight, and more than 75 AI-first innovators, have already joined Markup AI’s early access program. 

Markup AI is also partnering with Contentful, the API-first composable content platform, to bring governance directly into digital content workflows. Together, the companies are closing the gap between content creation and compliance. The partnership is the first of many, as Markup AI builds an ecosystem of integrations to expand its reach and deliver on its vision. 

“At Contentful, we’re focused on helping teams deliver digital experiences that truly connect with people,” said Contentful CMO Elizabeth Maxson.  “Markup AI’s Content Guardian Agents bring both speed and confidence into our content workflows — giving us the ability to scale while ensuring every piece of content meets the highest standards for quality and compliance. That kind of assurance isn’t just operational efficiency, it’s what allows marketers to move fast and maintain the trust that customer relationships depend on.”

Also Read: The 4Ps of Martech Unlocking Marketing’s Tech Revolution

New Leadership Driving the Vision 

Following the appointment of Matt Blumberg as CEO earlier this year, Markup AI has expanded its leadership team with proven experience scaling technology companies:  

• Shawn Nussbaum, Chief Technology Officer
• Ken Takahashi, Chief Corporate & Business Development Officer
• Louis Bucciarelli, Chief Revenue Officer

Markup AI also welcomed Jake Heller, founder of CaseText (acquired by Thomson Reuters), to its Board of Directors, bringing deep expertise in legal AI and compliance. 

Content Guardian Agents in Action 

The $27.5 million investment, which is a mix of Series A equity and debt, will accelerate product development, expand developer integrations, and scale go-to-market efforts globally.

“Having worked for decades in the legal field, I immediately recognized the potential benefits GenAI tools could bring to the industry. At the same time, I understood that without the proper guardrails in place these tools could quickly become a legal and compliance nightmare,” said Jake Heller. “Markup AI is creating the essential layer of trust that enterprises need to fully embrace AI. Their Content Guardian Agents solve a mission-critical problem at the exact moment the market is demanding solutions, and I’m excited to help guide the company’s journey as a Board Member.” 

The post Markup AI Raises $27.5M to Launch Content Guardian Agents appeared first on MartechView.

Online fast-fashion retailer Shein received a 150 million euro ($175.61 million) fine on Wednesday from France’s data protection authority for improperly using cookies. The company contested the decision and said it would appeal.

The Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), a government body charged with enforcing consumer data protection, said Shein’s website failed to comply with regulations in collecting consumers’ data without consent.

When users browsing Shein‘s French site opted out of cookies – small files that allow websites and advertisers to identify individual users and track their browsing habits – some were still found to be placed on the user’s computer, regardless, the commission said in a statement detailing a test it conducted on the site in August 2023.

Under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, cookies are considered personal data because they are used to identify shoppers and target them with ads, and websites must obtain consent to use them.

“The size of this fine takes into account the fact the company has ignored several obligations, by depositing cookies without users’ consent, not respecting their choices and not correctly informing them,” the CNIL said in a statement.

Shein’s scale also fed into the decision, the commission added, saying 12 million French residents visit the site every month.

Shein said it “firmly contests” the CNIL’s decision and will file an appeal.

“We consider the fine to be wholly disproportionate, given the nature of the alleged issues, our current full compliance, and the proactive corrective actions we have taken,” the fast fashion retailer said in a statement.

Shein said it had fully cooperated with the CNIL since August 2023 and strengthened “all aspects” of its data protection practices.

The company, which was founded in China and is headquartered in Singapore, said the size of the fine “appears politically motivated rather than the result of fair and balanced enforcement”.

Shein, which sells 12-euro dresses and 20-euro jeans, has faced criticism in France, where lawmakers have backed a draft law regulating fast fashion that would, if implemented, ban Shein from advertising.

The 150-million-euro fine represents around 2% of the 7.684 billion euros in revenue Shein’s Ireland-registered entity reported it made in Europe in 2023, the most recent year for which there is official data.

The post Shein Fined €150M by France Over Cookie Consent Breach appeared first on MartechView.

Protecting business communications has become a critical responsibility in the utility sector, where reliability is paramount and security is essential. Amid mounting pressures—ranging from AI-fueled load growth planning to quantum-era cyber threats—utility executives must rethink how they communicate, especially when sensitive third-party collaboration is involved.

Traditionally, these executives have trusted the security embedded in general-purpose messaging platforms, with a few turning to secure messaging apps that offer additional protections. However, many of these communication options are inadequate, offering limited protection for highly sensitive communications for mission-critical operations. Whether coordinating critical infrastructure design, upgrade, and construction efforts across multiple contractors and engineering firms, or conducting regulatory compliance assessments and reporting over potentially vulnerable networks, utility stakeholders require communication tools that address the increasing complexity, sensitivity, and oversight demands of their operating environment.

Not All Communication Channels Are Equal

Electric utilities have relied on individual communication platforms for decades to handle their organizations’ communication needs. This singular approach made managing and securing the conversations and data flowing across the corporate network easier, which is essential to facilitating business workflows. 

But that approach is no longer sustainable.

The mobile workforce and work-from-everywhere business ethos have upended this model, encouraging multi-platform communications using out-of-band messaging applications. This has resulted in users occasionally selecting communication tools based on familiarity, with consumer messaging apps often winning the preference battle. 

While SMS is typically prohibited for privileged conversations, utility IT staff can do little to prevent the occasional sharing of sensitive information over this convenient platform. Some utilities have brought in secure messaging apps to handle more sensitive communications. However, while more secure than general enterprise communication platforms, these platforms still have limitations in terms of compliance, device management, quantum protection, and/or access control. This situation leads to a troubling path: highly sensitive data and conversations potentially being shared on sub-optimized messaging platforms that lack the protections essential to safe and compliant communications.

That’s where consumer-based secure messaging platforms begin to fall apart in enterprise settings. Despite robust encryption for one-to-one conversations, consumer-first messaging platforms lack critical enterprise controls: identity verification, role-based access, workspace isolation, and regulatory-grade archiving.

What Consumer Apps Miss—and Why It Matters

These consumer-grade messaging platforms are often touted for their security protocols, but in a utility context, several weaknesses become liabilities:

• No participant transparency: Unless someone is in your contacts, these platforms typically display only a phone number, offering no assurance of identity or affiliation.
• Uncontrolled group sprawl: Any participant can add others to a conversation, creating risk without administrative oversight.
• No workspace boundaries: There is no way to confine a discussion to a verified organization or project team.
• No archival compliance: Without embedded archiving functionality, these platforms are incompatible with federal and state requirements for communications retention, especially regarding nuclear, grid stability, or cybersecurity topics.

In short, encryption without governance is not enough. In utility operations, where every message might later be part of an audit trail, board report, or legal proceeding, these shortcomings are unacceptable.

What Modern Utility Messaging Actually Requires

Secure communication must evolve to meet both the regulatory burden and the operational urgency of modern utilities. Today’s leading platforms for utility executives incorporate six core principles:

1. Enterprise-scale encryption: End-to-end security across messages, voice, files, and archives—with scalability across regions and teams.
2. Device and identity verification: Detailed insights into not just who is communicating, but on what device and under what security posture.
3. Zero trust access control: No implicit trust; every user must be authenticated and intentionally added to a workspace or channel.
4. Regulatory-grade archiving: Secure, compliant archiving—even if local users delete content—ensures accountability and legal defensibility.
5. Role-based conversation segregation: Different teams require different access levels. Sensitive topics (e.g., nuclear operations or vendor strategy) must remain isolated from general internal chatter.
6. Post-quantum cryptography: Future-proofing communications against the coming wave of quantum-derived decryption is no longer optional for utilities managing national infrastructure.

Cyber Risk Is No Longer Hypothetical

The risk environment is evolving faster than most business communication tools. With state-sponsored actors increasingly targeting U.S. critical infrastructure—and AI amplifying both phishing and network surveillance—legacy tools are falling behind.

Utilities are especially vulnerable due to the convergence of operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT), reliance on third-party vendors, and complex regulatory mandates. From ransomware attacks on regional grids to espionage risks tied to new power generation design options, the communication layer is now a top-tier vulnerability.

As the federal government accelerates programs around AI dominance and the strategic options to meet aggressive demand levels, utility conversations are becoming more sensitive, and more exposed. Decision-makers must ensure the communication channels reflect that reality.

The Bottom Line

Treating message and collaboration security as an afterthought—or relying on apps designed for individual consumers—exposes organizations potentially to regulatory penalties, reputational damage, and national security risk.

For CIOs, CISOs, and operational executives, upgrading to secure, enterprise-grade messaging platforms is no longer about IT hygiene but strategic survival.

When the grid is your responsibility, every message matters. And the platform you choose to send it through can be your weakest link—or your best defense.

The post Is Securing Utility Communications Possible Beyond Consumer Apps? appeared first on MartechView.

Work and personal life used to exist on separate tracks. Today, they’re running on the same rails. Whether someone is joining a webinar in the morning, ordering groceries at lunch, or catching up on work emails in the evening, there’s no clear line between professional and personal identity anymore.

This shift is backed by more than anecdotal evidence. Many companies now support some form of hybrid work, and workers routinely toggle between personal and professional tasks throughout the day. These blurred roles aren’t just a feature of daily life. They are now a fundamental part of how people engage with brands, platforms, and content.

This has significant implications for marketers. When someone shops online, watches a demo video, downloads a whitepaper, and signs up for a rewards program, are those four different people in your system, or one? If your data model doesn’t have an answer, it’s likely not working hard enough.

What’s Missing in Most Marketing Data

For years, customer data has been trapped in separate systems: CRM records, web analytics, media buys, and offline files that rarely line up. Marketing teams have tried to patch things together, often relying on third-party cookies or device IDs to connect the dots.

That’s getting harder by the day. Regulatory changes have pushed marketers toward first-party data strategies, but those alone don’t provide the whole picture. Cookies are going away. Device-level targeting is inconsistent. And even the most robust in-house data still tends to separate people into “consumer” or “professional” categories, as if those are two different humans.

Marketers need a unified identity framework to meet today’s targeting and engagement demands. This means:

• Connecting business and personal attributes at the individual level  
• Recognizing people across devices and channels  
• Enabling consistent, permission-based outreach at scale  

The companies that can do this will operate with far greater confidence in their data, deliver more relevant experiences, and reduce wasted spend.

Ideal Person Profiles: A Better Kind of Profile

One solution gaining traction is the Ideal Person Profile, or IPP. It’s not a new database or a new targeting tool. It’s a more complete approach to understanding people, and it is quickly becoming the only viable path forward for understanding people in a more complete and connected way.

An IPP combines multiple data sources, linking first-party information with verified business and consumer insights. The goal is to build a clear view of someone’s interests, roles, responsibilities, preferences, and behaviors across both their professional and personal life.

With this kind of profile, marketers can:

• Identify who is behind a set of interactions—often through multiple channels  
• Find new audiences that share key traits with existing high-value customers  
• Tailor campaigns that match someone’s context, no matter the touchpoint  

For example, someone might interact with a brand during work hours as a B2B buyer and later on as a consumer. An IPP makes it possible to understand and connect with that person appropriately in both moments, based on a shared profile grounded in real data, not guesses.

What Makes This Work

Profiles like these don’t build themselves. They rely on a few key elements:  

• A reliable method for linking business and consumer data  
• Persistent key at the person level, which enables tracking and retention of identities across offline and digital signals and attributes, such as hashed emails, mobile advertising IDs, and postal address data
• A structured, privacy-compliant framework that respects consent and regulation  

Most marketing teams can’t source or maintain this kind of system internally. Even with a strong first-party dataset, it’s difficult to make connections that go beyond your own properties. That’s why external data partners are so critical in this space.

Where It Comes Together

To address this challenge, marketers need solutions that can connect personal and professional data under a unified structure, so that they can create more complete profiles, improve targeting, and deliver consistent messaging across email, social, mobile, CTV, and more.

The solutions they use should support the creation of IPPs by linking first-party data with verified business and consumer signals, all within a privacy-first framework. When this is accomplished, the result is better identity resolution, more efficient outreach, and a stronger foundation for personalized engagement.

As marketers adjust their strategies for a more fluid, cross-channel world, a better understanding of individual identity isn’t optional—it’s the only way forward.

The post Blurring Boundaries: Why Marketers Need Unified Profiles appeared first on MartechView.

Marketers have long treated email validation as a one-time safety check—a quick cleanse of the list to remove invalid addresses and prevent bounces. If the delivery didn’t fail, the address made the cut. But in 2025, that mindset is doing more harm than good.

A deliverable email address doesn’t mean the address is good—it just didn’t bounce. Deliverability says nothing about whether the inbox is a real, active human who wants to hear from you. Unfortunately, too many email and identity systems still stop there.

But the evolution of next-generation email validation—Validation 2.0—doesn’t stop at syntax or deliverability. Adding real-time signals like behavior, risk, and identity indicators shifts validation from a static check to a continuous process that monitors every email address, not just when it enters the system, but as it ages, engages, or decays.

The best-in-class providers tap into billions of permissioned behavioral signals to identify invalid and untrustworthy addresses, helping teams identify risk sooner.

Fraud moves fast. Inboxes are created for single-use, and the line between a real customer and a bot can be hard to spot. An email verification batch job from last month won’t catch a newly compromised inbox, and a deliverability check won’t detect a surge of promo abuse from hyper-disposable or high-velocity domains. That’s where real-time systems come into play.

The next generation of email validation frameworks must layer behavioral intelligence—open patterns, age, velocity, device signals—on top of traditional email hygiene logic to screen for indicators of real user activity while flagging suspicious patterns like disposable addresses or account farms. This will be crucial to protecting both marketing outcomes and data integrity.

What Static Checks Miss—and Why It Matters

Legacy email verification tools tend to ask three questions: Is the syntax right? Is the domain live? Will it accept mail? That’s fine for catching typos. But it misses the bigger picture: real-world usage.

What about the address created to claim a one-time offer, never to be used again? Or the inbox that passed deliverability checks but hasn’t opened a message in a year? Or the 200 lookalike addresses spun up in an hour to exploit a referral program?

These aren’t edge cases. The Data & Marketing Association states that over 17% of marketing databases include “undetected low-quality emails.” These records appear valid but show zero engagement—or worse, signs of abuse—when examined more deeply.

And the impact isn’t subtle. Low-quality addresses skew A/B tests, suppress engagement metrics, inflate acquisition costs, and erode sender reputation. They quietly dilute campaign ROI and increase exposure to fraud.

Behavioral Intelligence at the Point of Entry

Real-time email validation works where it matters most: the moment an email enters your system when a user submits a form, signs up, or checks out. Knowing whether the address exists is only the most basic step, but whether it behaves like a real person’s inbox is important. Is there recent engagement? Does the address exist across multiple platforms? Are there standard usage patterns—or suspicious ones?

That immediacy is crucial. Waiting for a batch verification cycle means fraud and bad data are already in the system, feeding downstream models, personalization, and segmentation logic. By then, the damage is already happening.

Behavioral intelligence also reveals silent risk—inboxes that don’t bounce, don’t click, don’t convert. They just sit there, dragging performance down while remaining technically valid. Traditional validation never questions them. But smarter systems do.

An email can go from trustworthy to risky overnight. Maybe it was abandoned. Maybe it’s now a recycled spamtrap. Or maybe it’s simply no longer active. But if validation only happens on import—or once a quarter—those shifts won’t be caught in time.

Email validation is an always-on discipline that monitors email health across the lifecycle, surfacing risk signals at critical points: re-engagement, login, checkout, and beyond. Trust in data isn’t something to verify once and forget. It’s something to earn every day.

Not Just Protection—Performance

The benefits of next-generation email validation extend beyond risk mitigation to improve reach, optimize audience quality, and strengthen personalization. Campaigns reach people, not just inboxes. Metrics reflect true performance, not inflated lists. And email marketing ROI—still among the highest in digital channels at $36 per $1 spent, per Litmus—is protected.

Marketers no longer have to choose between scale and precision. With next-gen email validation, cleaner, smarter email data in real time fuels every program it touches—from acquisition to automation to loyalty. And in an environment where trust is harder to earn and easier to lose, email data needs to do more than just pass the syntax test and connect to a real, trustworthy customer. When email data reflects behavior, everything downstream performs better.

The post Is Your Email List Truly Clean? appeared first on MartechView.

MartechView brings together a powerhouse roster of marketing innovators, data strategists, and AI pioneers who are redefining the future of customer engagement. From composable CDPs to privacy-first strategies and breakthrough personalization, this edition’s contributors represent a dynamic cross-section of leaders pushing marketing technology to new heights.

They unpack the changing face of customer experience in an omnichannel world, challenge the status quo on data strategies, and explore how AI is transforming every facet of marketing—from campaign execution and media buying to content creation and customer insights. Whether you’re navigating data clouds, scaling personalized experiences, or reimagining engagement, these expert perspectives offer the strategies, inspiration, and foresight to help you thrive in an increasingly complex, AI-powered marketing ecosystem.

Adam Greco, Product Evangelist, Hightouch

Adam Greco is a distinguished Product Evangelist at Hightouch, where he champions Composable CDP and AI Decisioning. With a profound background in digital analytics, he’s recognized for authoring the definitive book on Adobe Analytics and founding the free Search Discovery Education Community. Greco empowers companies to extract maximum value from their digital data, continually pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the field.

Article: Adam Greco on the Future of CDPs: AI, Data Activation, and the Composable Revolution

David Joosten, Co-founder and President, GrowthLoop

David Joosten is the Co-founder and President of GrowthLoop, a pioneering composable CDP leveraging the data cloud and AI to revolutionize marketing. With a passion for empowering marketers, he’s dedicated to transforming teams into agile experimenters by removing data friction and unlocking insights from first-party data. Joosten’s entrepreneurial spirit, experience advising major brands, and background at Google drive his commitment to building intelligent, data-driven customer journeys.

Article: David Joosten Reveals AI and Data Blueprint for Privacy-First Marketing

Dean de la Peña, VP, Identity, Data Strategy and SaaS, Resonate

Dean de la Peña is a highly experienced VP of Identity, Data Strategy, and SaaS at Resonate. He is known for building outstanding teams and scaling technology and AI companies. With over 16 years of success, he played a key role in Mastercard’s $600M acquisition of Applied Predictive Technologies. He champions combining human empathy with data-driven analytics to uncover truth, demonstrating a strong track record in driving significant revenue growth and client profitability.

Article: From Buzzword to Breakthrough: Can AI Finally Deliver True Personalization?

Deborah Knight, Director, Kaptive CX

Deborah Knight is the Director of Kaptive CX, leveraging over two decades of expertise to craft compelling customer experiences and drive growth. She excels at developing high-performance strategies and boasts a proven track record in customer retention, evidenced by her global impact on Doctify’s customer strategy. Knight is also passionate about coaching and helping teams take ownership of financial metrics and thrive while implementing scalable digital-first initiatives for enhanced engagement and efficiency.

Article: What Does Modern Customer Experience Look Like in 2025?

Gianluca Ferruggia, General Manager, DesignRush

Gianluca Ferruggia is the General Manager at DesignRush, a leading B2B marketplace that connects businesses with verified agencies. With a decade of experience, he’s an expert in B2B marketplaces known for building projects from inception and driving significant growth, including a 3,200% revenue increase for DesignRush. Ferruggia oversees all aspects of operations, content, digital marketing, SEO, finance, and sales, leading a team of 130 employees while also contributing editorially to Forbes Councils.

Article: What the Latest Marketing Stats Reveal About Your Brand

Guy Marion, Chief Marketing Officer, Chargebee

Guy Marion is the Chief Marketing Officer at Chargebee, a role he’s held since April 2023, following his tenure as General Manager of Chargebee Retention (formerly Brightback, which he founded). A revenue-focused SaaS leader, he boasts extensive experience in growing Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) from $0M to $150M. Marion specializes in defining unique go-to-market strategies, building world-class teams, and accelerating revenue through diverse sales channels, with expertise spanning marketing, product, growth, and sales functions across various SaaS domains.

Article: Is Smart Monetization the New Product Differentiator?

Jeff Kaplan, CEO, TARA Media

Jeff Kaplan is the CEO and Co-Founder of TARA Media Strategies (formerly Popsycle Digital), a data-driven performance marketing agency. With 25 years of experience, he’s an award-winning marketing professional with deep expertise in direct marketing, sales, and management. A self-proclaimed “data geek,” Kaplan is passionate about leveraging insights to help companies reach their full potential and achieve their client goals in the ever-evolving omnichannel marketing ecosystem.

Article: Jeff Kaplan on AI, Ad Fraud, and the Future of Media Buying

Joey Petracca, COO and Co-founder, Chicory

Joey Petracca is the Co-founder and COO of Chicory, a leading contextual commerce advertising platform. He has been instrumental in the company’s growth since its inception in 2012, helping to transform recipe content into commerce media for CPG brands, retailers, and publishers. Joey’s expertise lies in the future of grocery and food technology innovation, focusing on how data strategies can empower marketers to drive growth. He oversees product and engineering, and plays a key role in the conception, development, and positioning of Chicory’s advertising solutions.

Article: What If Your Favorite Recipe Could Shop for You?

Kevin O’Malley, Co-Founder, AdDaptive

Kevin O’Malley is the Co-Founder of AdDaptive Intelligence, a leading account-based advertising platform he started in March 2010. He has been instrumental in building a company focused on bridging offline and online data to optimize B2B advertising campaigns. His vision ensures that transparent analytics helps B2B marketers reach key accounts and decision-makers effectively. Under his leadership, AdDaptive has remained self-funded, driving continuous profitability and expansion in the ad tech industry.

Article: Why Marketers Need a Data Diet in the Age of AI Overload

Lee Hammond, Customer Data Strategy and Solutions, KLH

Lee Hammond is an accomplished marketing technology professional who previously served as an industry principal at the Marketing Data Cloud Practice in Hakkoda. In that role, he specialized in helping companies build modern marketing technology stacks on top of Snowflake’s Data Cloud. His expertise lies in customer data activation, having also optimized MarTech stacks at Universal Music Group to unify fan data and personalize experiences. Currently, as a Customer Data Strategy and Solutions consultant at KLH, Hammond continues to guide organizations toward a warehouse-first approach for their customer data, offering strategic recommendations and solutions.

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Liz Carter, CMO, Reputation

Liz Carter is a highly experienced Chief Marketing Officer at Reputation, a leader in software technology and services. With a robust background in the SaaS industry, she has hands-on experience navigating IPO processes, acquisitions, and integrations for both venture-backed and PE-backed businesses. Carter is skilled in various facets of marketing, including corporate communications, branding, demand generation, and multi-channel strategies. She is also a dedicated Board Member at Razing the Bar, supporting underserved youth populations.

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Marianna Mankle, Associate Content Marketing Manager, Siege Media

Marianna Mankle is an Associate Content Marketing Manager at Siege Media, a prominent agency specializing in SEO, content marketing, and digital PR. With a strong passion for storytelling, she focuses on harnessing this “superpower” to help companies achieve their marketing and SEO goals. Mankle brings a solid background in content creation, strategy, editing, and project management, previously serving as a Senior Content Marketing Specialist and Content Strategist. She leverages her expertise to craft compelling narratives that resonate with audiences and drive organic growth.

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Natalie Severt, Marketing Director, Intelligent Relations

Natalie Severt is a dynamic Marketing Director at Intelligent Relations, specializing in AI public relations and SaaS. With over 8 years in SEO management and 11 years in content management, she’s an expert at crafting and executing comprehensive marketing and PR strategies that drive brand awareness, traffic, leads, and ultimately, sales. Severt excels at integrating diverse marketing channels—including social media, email, and product marketing—to achieve impactful results and has a proven track record of boosting organic traffic and conversion rates.

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Pavel Yurovitsky, CEO, KIT Global

Pavel Yurovitsky is the Chief Strategy Advisor & Chairman of the Board at KIT Global, having previously served as CEO for nearly three years. He is dedicated to guiding the company’s long-term vision and global expansion into new markets, focusing on AI-driven campaign execution, first-party data solutions, and real-time analytics. Yurovitsky’s approach is driven by bold thinking and data-informed strategies, building impactful partnerships and fostering a culture of diversity, excellence, and innovation within the multicultural team.

Article: AI Transparency: The Next Competitive Advantage

Priya Gill, Vice President and Head of Global Marketing, SurveyMonkey

Priya Gill is the Vice President and Head of Global Marketing at SurveyMonkey, leading a 95+ person team across all marketing functions. Reporting directly to the CEO, she’s focused on strengthening market position and driving revenue for both self-serve and enterprise businesses. With a strong background in product marketing, web strategy, and global experience, including significant roles at Box, Gill is adept at driving incremental revenue through strategic launches and business transformations across diverse global markets.

Article: AI in Marketing: Balance Tech with Human Touch for Impact

Stamatis Astra, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer, Intelligent Relations

Stamatis Astra is the Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at Intelligent Relations, an AI-powered PR firm, where he focuses on product definition and market growth. He’s an expert at taking startups from inception to exit, leveraging AI to help clients secure media coverage, build online presence, and drive conversions. Beyond his entrepreneurial ventures, Astra is also a Venture Partner in private equity, investing in SaaS, IoT, and life-enriching applications, and co-hosts “Grecian Echoes,” a talk show on WNTN-1550 AM.

Article: Can AI in Retail Win Trust Before It Loses Customers?

Timm Chiusano, Author, Park & Fine Literary and Media, Creator, Night

Timm Chiusano is an author, creator, and former executive with over 20 years of experience at companies like ABC Sports, ESPN, and Charter Communications. He recently transitioned to focus on his purpose: empowering others to do their best work by being their best selves. A respected leader, Chiusano blends the art and science of marketing to drive dynamic business initiatives, excelling in P&L management, process development, and cross-platform marketing. His first book, HOW TO GET ADDICTED TO APPRECIATION, is set for publication in 2026.

Article: Why Brands Must Build Parasocial Bonds, Not Just Content

Vanessa Horwell, Chief Strategy Officer, THINKINK

Vanessa Horwell is the Chief Strategy Officer and founder of THINKINK, a specialist communications firm she established over 19 years ago. With a deep passion for brand storytelling, she helps trailblazing companies in sectors like airline/aviation, hospitality, and retail improve their visibility and drive real business outcomes through integrated PR and marketing programs. Horwell is an expert strategist and problem solver, leveraging her extensive international market knowledge and strong relationships with media and analysts across three continents to craft compelling narratives and impactful campaigns.

Article: Vanessa Horwell Cuts Through B2B Blah With Bold Clarity

Weston Clarke, Director, Product Management, Amplitude

Weston Clarke is a data-driven and customer-obsessed Director of Product Management at Amplitude, where he is actively defining the digital analytics category. With a background spanning computer science and consulting at Accenture, Clarke brings a wealth of experience from building early-stage products at UberEats and launching buy-side revenue products at Redfin. He excels at making product analytics a team sport, focusing on areas like reporting, content organization, and integrations to enhance collaboration.

Article: Personalization: How to Know Your Users’ “Why”?

Will Post, Vice President, GTM (Sales and Partnerships), Measured

Will Post is the Vice President of GTM (Sales and Partnerships) at Measured, bringing a strong track record of success in B2B sales and marketing. He excels at forging C-Level relationships, creating best-in-class marketing solutions, and optimizing strategies to drive client business. With diverse experience across CPG, financial services, and automotive sectors, Post is a proven leader focused on deepening partnerships and generating significant ROI.

Article: Are B2B Marketers Finally Moving Beyond Last-Click?

Also Read: Edition 1: Sharp Minds Decoding Tech’s Next Wave

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