Ashley Faus

Kogan Page Publishing

My book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI" features three frameworks to help marketers build trust and attract, convert, and retain customers.

Key messages:

-	Trust is the key: People buy from people they trust, and people trust people like themselves. As marketers, we need to build trust with our audience to win and re-win their hearts, minds, and wallets.

-	The human connection becomes more important in the age of AI, because more technology makes it harder to find people you can trust and make authentic connections.

-	The Playground mindset shift: Marketing needs to evolve to match the modern journey. It’s no longer about rushing people to a purchase, it’s about building trust and rapport for long-term value exchange.

-	The Social Media Spectrum (communication, conversation, community): Social media continues to evolve, but too many brands are still focused on driving and participating in conversation about the brand, instead of meeting the audience where they are and fostering community.

-	4 Pillars of Thought Leadership (credibility, profile, prolific, depth of ideas): Thought leadership helps build trust, but it’s not the only type of content or creator that you need in the marketing mix.

Author, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI"

Atlassian

Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio

Director of Integrated Product Marketing

Product Marketing Lead, Software Teams Content 

Sr. Manager, Integrated Media

Sr. Corporate Communications Manager

Skyport Systems

Skyport Systems, acquired by Cisco, provides secure, hyperconverged infrastructure to modernize the DMZ, protect Active Directory, and secure legacy applications and remote branch operations.

Sr. Product Marketing Manager and Content Strategist

Palerra

Palerra, acquired by Oracle, pioneered the API-based Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB).

Sr. Manager, Content Strategy and Marketing Communications

Duarte, Inc.

Strategy and execution for all things marketing.

In addition to previous duties, manage budget, forecast, and annual planning for marketing strategy.

Sr. Marketing Manager

Manage a team of creative experts
Marketo integration, strategy, and execution
Analytics/KPI reporting and analysis
IP launches - Resonate multimedia, Slidedocs, Persuasive Presentations eCourse
Email campaigns, social media, and ad campaigns
Website branding and content updates
Editorial content strategy and execution
Executive presentations

Marketing Manager

Killick Aerospace

Killick Aerospace encompasses several companies that provide engine maintenance, accessory maintenance, airframe support, and parts and engine sales to the aviation industry. I oversaw the marketing activities for all companies in the Killick Aerospace portfolio. My duties include, but are not limited to:

Work with management and IT department for requirements gathering, implementation and documentation of CRM strategy 

Manage 3rd party programmer to update company websites, content manager for company websites

Manage relationships with outside vendors including designers and promotional representatives 

Coordinate all aspects of trade show exhibits, including marketing collateral, shipments, promotional items, and travel logistics

Co-creator and co-manager for print advertising budget

Track and measure success of marketing activities, including website traffic/SEO, referral lead source, and email campaigns

Marketing Coordinator

UserTesting.com

I helped research and implement a social media strategy, including Twitter and reaching out to bloggers. I also helped with customer service.

Independent Contractor

Solar Designs, Inc

Account manager for the company’s largest project, a commercial solar installation, worth $150,000

Improved profit margin by 5% through bulk-price negotiations with supplier

Grew affiliate partnerships from 2 to over 50 within 8 months, used direct Marketing to offer qualified leads and guaranteed revenue to new partners

Increased revenue opportunity by creating a training package for installers

Strategic analysis of customer and installer needs, led to over-hauling information-gathering form and presentation of final customer proposal

Wrote proposals with details about solar system design, environmental impact, and financial implications including up-front costs, rebates, ROI, and payback

OpenTech Media, Inc.

Research, layout, and copy for corporate brochure and website to present a more cohesive message to customers

Virion Interactive Agency

Competitive analysis, post-project analysis, client invoicing and work order processing

Account Management Intern

Director of Integrated Product Marketing, Atlassian

Marketer, writer, speaker by day... singer, actor, fitness fiend by night!

I've handled all aspects of marketing strategy and execution, from product marketing, to demand-gen, to content and events. I love telling the high-level stories that resonate with an audience and connecting the dots between types of assets and distribution channels.

My writing has been published on TIME, Forbes, The Journal of Brand Strategy, and The Muse, and I've spoken on various marketing topics for INBOUND, Harvard Business Review, and MarketingProfs.

Visit https://ashleyfaus.com/ for more information about my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI".

(Views are my own)

When you're friends with smart marketers, you feature each other as an example when you write a book 😀

Devin Bramhall released her book recently, and she featured my Playground framework.

I released my book in May, and I featured her community work from her time at Help Scout.

Per usual, there's a blooper pic if you swipe through 😂

Buy "Human-Centered Marketing": https://amzn.to/480QQLI

Buy "B2B Content Marketing Strategy": https://amzn.to/4i3SLne

(Thanks to MarketingProfs B2B Forum for the cozy background and in-person photo opp 😊)

Head of Lifecycle Marketing, Portfolio at Atlassian

I don't have many rituals before I step onstage to speak.

But I DO love my glitter face mask tradition 😀

Excited to speak about building trust in the buyer's journey MarketingProfs B2B Forum this morning, 10:20am EST!

Grateful for another award for my book, "Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI" 🎉

Need a gift for yourself or a marketer you love? Get 40% through December 1st!

Grab a copy: https://lnkd.in/eJWZHRF8

Need some light reading en route to allllll the Thanksgiving dinners?

Free sneak peeks:

Thought leadership: https://lnkd.in/eXCZ2qPf

Buyer's journey playground: https://lnkd.in/esQDz9EK

Congrats to all the winners: https://lnkd.in/emxkNFZ2

When I was VERY early in my career, I had to make an expensive decision on behalf of the business.

I was SO worried about it!

Tons of money.
Literally minutes to make the choice.
No time to call my boss for approval.

I decided to spend the money, and trusted that my boss would be ok with it once I finally talked with her.

Y'all... It was paying $50 for valet parking.

But at that time in my life, $50 for parking seemed absurd.

At that time in my career, I wasn't well-versed in how businesses expenses and vendor agreements worked.

And I was genuinely worried about confirming with a vendor that they could pay $50 for valet parking because they were running late to film a customer testimonial during a big conference.

My boss was thrilled that I made the decision to spend the $50 on faster parking vs. potentially losing the filming slot with the customer.

Now as a seasoned marketer, I cringe at my younger self, thinking how silly it was for me to even worry about $50 valet parking. 

OF COURSE that is a no-brainer call!

But... does your team know when it's a no-brainer decision? 

Do they trust that their leaders will back them up when they need to make real-time "expensive" choices?

Do they have a framework for when to escalate?

If you're rolling your eyes at folks making bad calls, it's worth taking a step back to understand whether they have context and trust to make good calls.

Because it's ACTUALLY expensive to do things cheap.

"Which bakery did this come from?"

"Wait, YOU made these!?!"

"You should open a bakery..."

People say this to me frequently when I bring treats to the office, the theater, birthdays, etc.

There's some AMAZING commercial-scale bakeries out there, AMAZING home bakers out there, and everything in between (including my amateur baker status).

After baking treats and buying treats over the years, I've started applying my marketing nerdery to the questions of perception, compliments, trust, etc. in this space.

And so, I'm curious...

In the comparison below, which option would you pay more for?

How much would you pay for a dozen of the cupcakes shown in the picture?

Assume that each option has comparable cost of goods sold, etc. to not bias the results too much, and you can make whatever assumptions you want about where the cupcakes came from, who took the pictures, if they're AI-generated vs. human, etc.

Please nerd out with me about the intersection of my baking hobby and my marketing brain 😋

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." - Goodhart's Law

I've been on a bit of a metrics and attribution kick lately, and I talked a bit about Goodhart's Law in my conversation with 🍁 Glenn Schmelzle on the Funnel Reboot podcast.

The heart of it is something that marketers continually struggle with...

We know we gotta measure.
But we know we can't measure everything.
And without everything, it kinda feels like we have nothing.

The problem is that we're so focused on capturing every. little. detail. in a way that we can easily show in a dashboard, but we miss the big opportunities that actually help people move through a buying process.

We talked about the core frameworks in my book that help you do just that: create a journey that helps the HUMANS make decisions, take action, and solve their problems (and yep, drive revenue for your business)!

Hear the full episode: https://lnkd.in/emxHSDgk

Grab a copy of the book: https://amzn.to/480QQLI

Kathleen Booth

Pavilion

Following a year in which I served the Marketing and Member Success teams at Pavilion, I'm fortunate to now serve the Marketing and Growth teams, whose focus is on growing topline revenue. The departments within this team include marketing (brand, content, product marketing, demand gen, partnerships, events, and community) and sales (both B2B and B2C).

Senior Vice President, Marketing & Growth

Advocating for Pavilion's vision of a new way to succeed in business, built on long-term relationships that are rooted in mutual support and reciprocity. Join us at joinpavilion.com

Ambassador

Pavilion's mission is to help CEOs, go-to-market executives and their teams unlock and achieve their professional potential through community-powered learning. We do this by providing more than 10,000 members in 100+ countries with education, events and community all designed to help them level up their careers.

After 3 years as a Pavilion Member, Chapter Head and Ambassador, I joined Pavilion to serve the Marketing and Member Success teams.

Senior Vice President Marketing & Member Success

Pavilion is a global community for high-growth leaders in every function. The community is designed to support professional development, facilitate the sharing of best practices, and serve as a trusted private community where Members can openly discuss business critical issues with the comfort of privacy and confidentiality. 

I served as the founding Chapter Head for the Washington, DC region, which encompasses the DC metro area, and extends south to Richmond, VA and north to Baltimore, MD.

Chapter Head - Washington, DC

Primary Venture Partners

As an Expert, I provide strategic advice and guidance to the investment team and founders within the Primary portfolio and broader network. Experts enjoy access to early-stage businesses, emerging trends and technology, and an expanded network of exceptional leaders and resources through a top-tier seed-stage firm.

Primary is New York City’s premier early-stage venture firm working alongside founders to build unicorns like Alloy, Alma, Chief, Dandy Electric, Latch, K Health, Stellar Health, Slice, and many more.

Expert

GTMfund

GTMfund Member

SkillCat

Advisor

SmallWorld 

Advisor to the CEO and company leadership on marketing strategy, branding, messaging, and demand generationl

Proto AI

Fractional CMO for SaaS provider of cloud-based advanced intelligence solutions. Advising on go-to-market strategy, positioning, budgeting, marketing team structure and hiring, etc.

gmgn supply co.

gmgn is charting a new course for the way consumer packaged goods come to market through its vision to launch 100 community-built brands through the gmgn supply DAO, a Web3 organization that allows anyone to purchase an NFT and effectively own a share of the profits from the sale of the company's products.

Founding Advisor

Tradeswell

Tradeswell (since rebranded as Incremental) is the real time operating system for ecommerce, offering brands a system of intelligence that breaks down the silos between marketing, sales, operations, logistics, and finance. Think of it as "mission control" for growing ecommerce businesses looking to thrive in the real time commerce economy.

Senior Vice President Marketing

clean.io

(Acquired by HUMAN in 2022) I had the honor of leading the team responsible for sharing the clean.io story with the world and supporting the amazing team of product, engineering, CS and sales folks who are creating the new category of digital engagement security.

Chief Marketing Officer

VP of Marketing

CannabizMD

The CannabizMD mission is to educate, build and engage a network of medical cannabis industry stakeholders, clinicians, industry influencers and patients to create an ecosystem advancing the needs of Maryland’s medical cannabis industry. I served as a Board-level advisor to the organization's founder.

Advisory Board Member

I spent the first part of my career working to make the world a better place by improving access to clean water and wastewater disposal in 50+ developing countries around the world. I loved my work as an international development consultant, but when it came time to start my family, I chose to settle in Annapolis Maryland and co-found a marketing agency with my husband.

We launched Quintain Marketing in 2006 and through our early partnership with HubSpot, grew it into a nationally-known digital marketing agency. We sold the business in 2017 to HubSpot's largest global partner and I began a new chapter in my career as a head of marketing (SVP, CMO) for high growth B2B tech companies looking to transition from start up to scale up.

Today, I serve the Marketing & Growth teams at Pavilion as part of our mission to help go-to-market leaders and their teams achieve and unlock their full professional potential. My scope includes the entire revenue organization, including marketing, media, events, partnerships, and both B2C and B2B sales. 

Outside of work, I am a Board-level advisor to several tech startups and have been named by USA Today as one of 6 Global Marketing Advisors Who Are Rising Stars, a frequent public speaker on topics relating to digital marketing, and a passionate advocate for entrepreneurs.

I've been named by TopRank as one of the 50 Top B2B Marketing Influencers, by Insightly and TrustRadius and GTM Partners as one of 30 GTM Gurus, and by Influence Digest as a Top 15 Marketing Expert in Washington, DC.

The most interesting marketing teams of the next decade won’t be built at big enterprises. They’ll be born inside early stage companies.

Why? Because they have the clean slate.

For years, the model was simple: more work = more people.
 
But AI has broken that equation.

The new model looks like this:

 1️⃣ What needs to get done?
 2️⃣ Can AI solve it?
 3️⃣ If not, who can we hire that will take an AI-first approach?

That’s not about replacing marketers. It’s about forcing ourselves to get brutally honest about what truly requires human creativity, empathy, and judgment - and what doesn’t.

Yes, AI can write a blog draft, or an email, or a webinar outline - or even a LinkedIn post 😉 

But only humans can inject original perspective.

Yes, AI can optimize campaigns, suggest strategies, and write creative briefs.
 
But only humans can build trust and spark emotion.

The early stage companies that lean into this mindset will build smaller, smarter, more innovative teams that punch way above their weight. 

They’ll push the boundaries of AI while concentrating human energy on the real differentiators: creativity, connection, and bold points of view.

It will be harder for legacy teams to adapt. They’re anchored in old models of headcount and workflows. 

But challengers? They have the opportunity to rewrite the rulebook.

I, for one, am excited to see who takes it.

Are there companies you know that are already rethinking how to build an AI-first marketing team? I’d love to hear about them.

Who is already innovating on this?

#AI #marketing #kathleenhq

VP Marketing @ Sequel.io 💜 the webinar solution for data-driven marketers

Huge congratulations to Amanda Kahlow and the entire 1mind team on their $30M Series A! 🎉

I first met Amanda in mid-2024, back when 1mind was just getting started - a tiny team with a big vision. Even through the screen, her energy and conviction leapt out. When I finally had the chance to meet her in person and hear her describe what she was building, I was immediately sold.

It took a while (as these things often do), but eventually Pavilion became a 1mind customer - and I got to help launch Pavilion’s digital superhuman "Pam” experience just before I departed. 

Watching that project come to life was an incredible learning experience (I got to see what it takes, from start to finish, to train a digital superhuman) and a reminder of the importance of opening ourselves to change as the necessary precursor to taking big, bold bets.

Since I first met Amanda, 1mind has gone from a small startup with just a couple of employees to a VC-backed company with incredible momentum and customer logos. 

They’ve done it without a marketing team, and still pulled off one of the most impressive out-of-home campaigns I’ve seen, blanketing San Francisco with billboards and bus stop ads during Dreamforce.

So much of their growth has been founder-led - Amanda driving pipeline while shaping product vision - alongside Katie Nocerino (Hillman), whose sheer energy and force of will have helped fuel the company’s rise.

It’s been amazing to watch their journey, and I can’t wait to see what comes next for this powerhouse, female-led startup.

Congratulations again, Amanda and team - you’ve built something truly special.
 
If you haven’t checked out 1mind yet… you should. 

See more on their Series A raise here

Open article: 6sense founder Amanda Kahlow raises $30 million for new human-replacement AI sales startup 1mind | TechCrunch by techcrunch.com

6sense founder Amanda Kahlow raises $30 million for new human-replacement AI sales startup 1mind | TechCrunch

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The Battle

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Kathleen Booth

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Ashley Faus's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreAshley Faus's LinkedIn Performance