Interview Series

One of the greatest learnings from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is that now is the time for teams across industries to capitalize on better internal processes while driving productivity and change. Eric Theobald, SVP of Products and Engineering at CareerBuilder discusses a few thoughts in this quick chat: ________ Tell us a little about yourself Eric…we’d love to hear about your journey so far…how has the 2020 pandemic been for you and your dev team at CareerBuilder? I’ve spent the last 22 years in the HR and Human…

"Practical applications of machine learning will take off in 2021, as marketers develop higher volumes of content targeting each stage in the customer lifecycle." Tell us about the way Marketing messages are evolving? Marketing messages will lose the jargon. In 2021, the marketing language will continue to see less use of jargon and be more genuine. COVID has taught marketers the value of straight talk and the appreciation of value-based messaging. Consumers are faced with a barrage of messaging from a variety of…

"As brands look to build stronger integrated campaigns, pairing mobile with OOH and DOOH is a powerful way to increase reach, engagement, store visits and sales." Tell us about your role at Billups. What inspired you to found the agency? I founded Billups in 2003 and together with our team, have since grown the company to become the largest, independent out-of-home (OOH) technology and managed services company in the US. Our mission is to transform the out-of-home experience through data science and technology —…

"Data Science is pushing the effectiveness of email marketing in new directions, bringing us closer to human interaction." From eBay to Google to Oracle, tell us about your journey in product innovation. My journey in Product Management started at eBay, during a time when Product Manager roles hadn’t been fully defined. I was the first Technical Product Manager hired at eBay to lead the establishment of a developer program, as well as set the strategic vision for their development platform. It was interesting to work…

"Marketing Automation is baked into our own marketing processes, however, it’s no short cut for real people working with prospects and customers in a non-scalable way." Tell us about your role and journey into Marketing Technology. What inspired you to start GlobalWebIndex? I had previously worked in a Market Research role at a large global advertising agency. My job was to help clients understand who they should target their Marketing at, why and how to reach them. I utilized all the industry research and data sets…

"While many marketers have first-party data, in order to get a complete view of the customer, third-party data is required to connect the dots." Tell us about your role and journey into Marketing Technology. How did you arrive at Experian? I began my career consulting for technology and telecommunications clients and quickly saw how technology was changing behavior and making life better for consumers. I left consulting to work in the Marketing Technology industry and recognized early on that digital and mobile were the…

"AI in the hands of marketers is the answer to solving complexity, enabling marketers to drive customer engagement and revenue by scaling personalized, relevant experiences to each customer on every channel." Could you tell us about your role and journey into technology? What made you start Blueshift? Before Founding Blueshift, my Co-founders and I spent the last 10 years working at the intersection of AI and Marketing; early on, we worked at the AI company Kosmix that was later acquired by Walmart to become WalmartLabs,…

"It’s important to remember that AI can’t tell you how to differentiate from your competitors and how to emotionally engage." Tell us about your role and journey into technology. What made you join Dynamic Signal? I have been in technology since 1996. I joined a company that helped people find books that they would enjoy. This company took books you already like and helped you find other books you would like. That technology was used to help drive more book sales. I love the fact that technology can help solve new,…

"With real-time reporting and optimizations, the performance of digital advertising has improved significantly." Tell us about your role and journey into technology. What galvanized you to start Chocolate Platform? I am a Co-Founder at Chocolate and currently serving as the CEO. I oversee the complete company strategy, operations, and short-term and long-term objectives. Chocolate originated from the need to offer a technologically sound and robust advertising solution that transcends traditional advertising. We started…

"Marketers will have to get creative to create interesting experiences that customers are willing to engage with in exchange for personal data." Tell us how technology became your career. What inspired you to join Treasure Data*? I like to joke that I’m either “the oldest millennial” or “the youngest Gen X” because I was born in 1980, but got my first computer when I was 6 and grew up as a “digital native” back when we were just called “nerds.” From there I’ve always been an “early adopter” of technology and paid my way…

"Brands not only need to monitor their own customer signals, but also look to other categories for clues — not just the one their business inhabits." Tell us about your role and journey. What led you to join GBH Insights as an Advisor? Throughout my career, I’ve always been intrigued with observing consumer behavior and response to different factors — looking for ways to improve product and customer experiences or pivot Marketing strategy to better meet the needs of customers. I was an English major in college, and a…

"Technology empowers marketing strategy and too many people are without the planning and process skill sets to make the tech actually work." Tell us about your role at LeadMD. I’m CMO in the title and a one-woman Marketing team in practice. How have Marketing methodologies evolved since 2014? It’s probably the writer in me that cares about the use of the word methodology here, but what is a methodology? Is it strategy or the execution of that strategy? If we’re talking about strategy, frankly, there are no new ideas.…

"The thing that drives us is helping marketers market the way consumers consume — seamlessly across the channels, formats, and moments that matter most."   Tell us about your journey to Marketing Technology. What inspired you to join 4C? Well, I just opened the MarTech phone book and 4C was at the top before the A’s! Just kidding of course, though it’s awesome being first in every list. Fun fact: 4C is named after an airplane seat. Our CEO got an upgrade, which eventually led to him meeting our Chairman and…

"If you’re not thinking about how to use AI to solve for core customer needs, you are losing your competitiveness." Tell us about your role and journey into technology. What encouraged you to create StitcherAds? I've been in tech since 2008. Formerly, I was an investment banker, and my goal back then was to become a VC. The best way to learn the VC trade was to put in work at startups. Since then, I've been a full-time tech founder, and my appetite for becoming a VC has diminished. StitcherAds gained traction in 2013,…

"The efficiency of email marketing is great, but because many campaigns can come off as “spammy” to shoppers, its efficacy suffers." Tell us about your role and journey into Data-driven Marketing Technology. What inspired you to start at PebblePost? Prior to founding PebblePost, I worked for over 20 years as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and startup executive. My background is in digital and programmatic advertising, and dates back to its earliest days. I was fascinated by how quickly programmatic was evolving, and…

"The challenge for advertisers is that the audience data they’re collecting is siloed within a given campaign channel. What they learn about a customer on SnapChat they’re not able to incorporate into a programmatic display campaign." Tell us about your role and journey into Technology. What inspired you to start KORTX IO? I’ve been writing software since I was a teenager. After studying computer science, I was fortunate to land a job at a traditional ad agency. Here my colleague and I were tasked with developing the…

"B2B meeting analytics has evolved from offering event meeting metrics to include influenced revenue, custom reporting and comparison of metrics across different events and much more." Tell us about your role and journey into Marketing Technology. What inspired you to work at Jifflenow? Jifflenow is a market leader in meeting automation platforms (MAP), with a SaaS solution that targets large enterprises and has an impressive list of customers from the Global 5000. Customers who use Jifflenow, love the product and its…

"Educate the people in your company about AI and use specific use cases that show benefits, whether that’s an increase in productivity or the time-saving in your day-to-day job." Tell us about your role and journey into Marketing and Customer Service Technology. What inspired you to start Unbabel? Five years ago, on a surfing trip, my co-founders and I discussed the AI dilemma, Technology had made this huge promise to solve machine translation but was still very far away from realizing that goal. The question we wanted to…

"In today’s multichannel landscape, marketers need a better and deeper understanding of the entire customer journey to provide better customer experiences and maximize return on investment."What is Fospha and how does it fit into a CMOs technology stack? Fospha is a marketing optimization specialist, helping brands solve their biggest challenges through the integration of siloed customer data and data-science measurement products. According to the latest report by Boston Consulting Group, three technical enablers are…

mute"Facebook and Google are the only two dominant players when it comes to both driving discovery- and intent-driven marketing campaigns — there isn’t a dominant player after them." Tell us about your role and journey into technology. How did you start at MuteSix? I was born and raised in New Jersey by a single mother who actually bought the first computer for my sister and me when I was 14. It was out of my sheer web addiction that I started tinkering around with programs such as Photoshop and Unix while building…