Executive Conversations

Maeva Cifuentes
  • 5.0 (3)
  • MARKETING
  • UPDATED SEMIMONTHLY

A podcast and marketing therapy session for GTM leaders to talk about the things we don’t talk enough about.

  1. From IPO prep to mid-market leadership: hard lessons in accountability with Rob Freedman

    09/23/2025

    From IPO prep to mid-market leadership: hard lessons in accountability with Rob Freedman

    In this episode of Executive Conversations, Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Rob Freedman, VP of Marketing at EZO. Rob shares insights from his two-decade career in marketing leadership, including lessons from preparing companies for IPO and navigating high-stakes executive rooms. He discusses how the role of marketing has shifted from brand-led to performance-driven, and why CFOs and product leaders are now calling more shots in GTM strategy. Rob explains the pressure VC-backed companies face to deliver short-term results, and how that’s reshaping what kinds of campaigns get approved. He also breaks down how marketers can earn a seat at the strategic table by adopting accountability early—well before any IPO is on the horizon. From failed international campaigns to executive transparency, Rob unpacks the realities of aligning across functions, staying data-driven, and owning the full customer journey. He shares why filtering messaging down to teams does more harm than good, and how applying IPO-level rigor can elevate performance—even for mid-market companies.

    27 min
  2. CMO-to-CRO isn’t capitulation with Kathleen Booth

    09/09/2025

    CMO-to-CRO isn’t capitulation with Kathleen Booth

    In this episode of Executive Conversations, Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Kathleen Booth, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Pavilion. Kathleen shares her perspective on why so many marketers today feel cornered—expected to own revenue without the resources, time, or internal alignment to succeed. She explores the short-termism trap, where overreliance on pipeline metrics erodes brand value and creates long-term risk. Kathleen talks about the limits of “educating up” in VC- and PE-backed environments, and why mindset alignment with the CEO is non-negotiable for long-term success. She also makes a bold case for why CMOs stepping into CRO roles isn’t a concession—it’s a power move. Kathleen challenges assumptions about marketing’s role in revenue leadership and shares how broader executive support, including structural changes like guaranteed severance, can give leaders the freedom to place high-impact bets.

    25 min
  3. Building tech-savvy marketing leadership with Rick Egan

    08/26/2025

    Building tech-savvy marketing leadership with Rick Egan

    In this episode of Executive Conversations, Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Rick Egan, chief marketing officer at Beyond Inc., a public marketplace for home goods. Rick traces his path from SEO specialist to leading marketing at a listed company, explaining how that journey sharpened his focus on demand signals, technology fluency and stakeholder management. He unpacks the post-covid demand crash, why falling conversion rates reveal market size—not media problems—and how tariffs and inventory gluts pressure margins and pricing. Rick shares the hard conversations he has with the board when shareholder expectations collide with shrinking buyer pools, and why discounting is often a last resort. He argues that modern CMOs must be part technologist, part psychologist: pushing AI workflows despite team fears, rewarding early adopters and managing out the refusers. Finally, Rick explains why letting domain experts own their lanes beats micromanagement and how public-company constraints force clearer strategic bets.

    26 min
  4. Running sales and marketing as one engine with Dan Chapman

    08/05/2025

    Running sales and marketing as one engine with Dan Chapman

    In this episode of Executive Conversations, Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Dan Chapman, VP of sales and marketing at DocNow. Dan tells the story of walking into a startup that was generating one or two MQLs a month, then building a 90-day lead-gen engine that lit up the entire pipeline. He explains how owning both sales and marketing forces a single-funnel mindset, why every project must prove its revenue impact fast, and how he justifies brand spend by showing that one closed deal covers the cost. Dan shares his “north star” spreadsheet of thirty ranked experiments, describes hiring creatives who can tie design to bookings, and details how constant calls with reps eliminate silos. He also digs into measuring success with CAC efficiency, balancing short-term pipeline with long-term credibility, and adapting to buyers who either want total handholding or zero contact. The conversation is a blueprint for making marketing accountable without killing creativity.

    23 min
  5. Leading without authority with Igor Kranjcec

    07/29/2025

    Leading without authority with Igor Kranjcec

    In this episode of Executive Conversations, Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Igor Kranjcec, VP of marketing at Farseer and at the Sastanak conference. Igor traces his 15-year shift from traffic-obsessed marketer to revenue-owned operator, explaining how linking every marketer’s bonus to closed-won deals ended budget battles and vanity metrics. He breaks down the mechanics of joint sales-marketing deal reviews, share-of-wallet dinners, and full-funnel KPIs that turn marketing into a genuine profit driver. Igor also digs into the psychology of “leading without authority,” showing how project-management rigor plus emotional intelligence lets marketers influence peers and executives without formal power. For new leaders, he shares why landing a visible win in the first 30–60 days is non-negotiable and how to manage up by handing execs decisions—not research. Finally, Igor warns against promoting star performers who refuse to leave execution, and offers a playbook for making support and CS teams accountable for upsell revenue.  In this episode, we talk about: revenue accountability marketing-sales alignment leading without authority full-funnel KPIs executive buy-in

    33 min
  6. Aligning marketing, sales and CS with Janet Jaiswal

    07/07/2025

    Aligning marketing, sales and CS with Janet Jaiswal

    Welcome to Executive Conversations, where we dig into the gritty realities of leading modern marketing teams. In this episode, Maeva Cifuentes sits down with Janet Jaiswal, chief marketing officer at Blueshift and long-time marketing advisor. Janet unpacks why her team now owns 90 percent of pipeline, how she killed the vanity of MQLs in favour of BANT-qualified “stage 1” leads, and what it really takes to align marketing, sales and CS around the same revenue target. She explains the hidden CRM and training work that comes with that shift, the dangers of chasing efficiency before effectiveness, and why AI-powered search is rewriting the SEO rulebook. Janet also shares practical steps for surfacing in LLM results—from tweaking robots.txt to publishing Q&A-style content—and reveals how Blueshift is already closing deals that start with ChatGPT queries.

    24 min
  7. Balancing effectiveness and efficiency with Amir Jadbari

    06/23/2025

    Balancing effectiveness and efficiency with Amir Jadbari

    In this episode, Maeva talks with Amir Jabbari, the three-time CMO now steering growth at BimeBazaar. Amir explains how bouncing from FMCG to fintech to insurtech sharpened his creativity and pushed him to blend street-level observation with hard data. He breaks down why posture and facial cues matter more than click-through rates, how a brand-attitude study convinced a data-obsessed board to bankroll “click-and-brick” campaigns, and why scaling an ineffective channel is a fast track to failure. Expect candid advice on separating efficiency from effectiveness, injecting human touch into digital funnels, and training your team to zoom out and question every best practice. In this episode, we talk about: qualitative customer insights cross-industry marketing innovation effectiveness versus efficiency human touch in insurtech critical thinking for cmos

    23 min
  8. Marketing’s Role in Training AI (and Teams) with Rachel Weeks

    06/09/2025

    Marketing’s Role in Training AI (and Teams) with Rachel Weeks

    In this episode of Executive Conversations, Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Rachel Weeks, former VP of Marketing. Rachel shares her experience leading B2B SaaS marketing teams and how she’s adapting to the rapid rise of AI across GTM functions. She discusses why AI should be treated like a junior hire, not a plug-and-play solution, and why marketers today are responsible for training not just their teams but also their tools and their execs. Rachel unpacks how leadership roles are shifting under PE influence, the blurred lines between marketing and sales, and how org structure impacts your ability to lead. She also reflects on how pressure to perform is rising faster than teams can realistically adopt AI, and why marketers need to stay grounded in strategy, not hype.

    23 min
See All (137)

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

A podcast and marketing therapy session for GTM leaders to talk about the things we don’t talk enough about.

Information

  • Creator
    Maeva Cifuentes
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2025
  • Episodes
    137
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Maeva Cifuentes
  • Show Website
    Executive Conversations