Laurent De Grauwe

Co-Founder and CEO @ Justifai | Product, Growth, AI Governance | ex-Microsoft

Driving Innovation and Growth in Tech: From Startups to Global Enterprises

Global Sales & Marketing Leader: With over 20 years of experience, I've driven transformative growth across Cloud Computing, IoT, Data and AI, and Enterprise Software.

Strategic Thinker: From Microsoft to startups, I've consistently scaled businesses of all sizes. Key achievements include:
- Achieving first $1M ARR in startups
- Growing incubation workloads to +$100M
- Transforming products into multi-billion dollar businesses

Go-To-Market Specialist: Expert in crafting and executing global GTM strategies that deliver exponential growth. I've led teams to success in small and highly matrixed organizations.

Business Developer at heart: I thrive where routes to market are yet to be defined. I am a quick learner and able to pivot based on market context.

Authentic Leader: Empowering people to accelerate business growth. Passionate coach, focusing on individual strengths and adapting leadership style for maximum effectiveness.

Sr. Director Global Field GTM & Programs 

Dr. Nicole Wieberneit

I am an award-winning Global Sales & Strategy executive and have a Doctor in Economics with over 20 years of international experience and proven track record of leading worldwide revenue growth in incubation products in highly complex matrix organizations like Microsoft or SAP. Some of my career highlights include:

•	At Microsoft, I spearheaded the growth of various emerging solutions, implementing innovative GTM strategies leaping revenues for MarTech from $2 million to $50 million, Mixed Reality to $20 million and scaled Low Code to $800 million. 
•	 Directed a transformative field sales experiment, pivoting from product-focused to AI-centered solution selling, which significantly contributed directly to a $150 M revenue increase.
•	Won several awards, such as Hall of Fame Award - People & Collaboration by partnering with and influencing leaders from other divisions to design and execute several cross-sell programs.

My personal mission and Northstar is to lead with authenticity, integrity, and courage paired with a passion for innovation and people. I strive to inspire others to join me on this journey:

I build successful teams by establishing a clear vision of aligning customer and employee experience and use low-cost efforts to scale like driving community building and worldwide enablement efforts through internal and external thought leadership activities. My goal is to capitalize on our solutions and growth opportunities and strategically scale the business with a forward-thinking plan, while promoting a founder’s mentality and encouraging creative thinking in GTM models. 

Let's connect to discuss ways to drive the success of your sales organization, increase win rates, and deliver sales excellence.

Director Sales Strategy / Business Architecture Cross Solution

Nicole Wieberneit

Super excited to be at CRM Playaz IRL 2026 #IRL26, because frankly, there is no shortage of noise in CRM, AI, and customer experience right now.

What I am looking forward to is hearing the voices of analysts, investors, and industry leaders who know how to challenge the narrative, call out the fluff, and focus on what actually matters for customers and businesses.

Less theater. More substance. More of that, please.

#IRL26 #CRM #AI #CustomerExperience #CX #B2B

GTM Executive | Playbooks are death. I build scaleable revenue engines | Data-driven operator in complex B2B ecosystems | Leading with authenticity, integrity, and courage | Growth Advisor for Start & Scale-Ups

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IRL26 gave me something I have been missing in too many AI conversations lately: actual depth.

So first, thank you to the speakers for showing up with substance. And especially to Paul Greenberg and Brent Leary for putting together a room that went beyond the usual AI noise machine.

What stood out to me most was that the discussion is finally moving past cheap takes.

Less AI slop.
Less SaaS panic.
Less “look, I vibe coded.”

More thinking about what actually changes underneath business, work, customer relationships, and decision-making.

Two sessions really stayed with me.

Michael Wu PhD: “What can we learn from the lunatics?”

That title alone was worth paying attention to.

What I liked about Michael’s framing was that it was not just about AI as a tool. It was about progress itself. 

The graphic captured it well: Why + How = compounding growth!!!

That is the part too many people miss:
🔹  The “why” matters because theoretical knowledge on its own does not move much.
🔹 The “how” matters because practical knowledge is what turns intent into motion.
👉 Compounding growth happens when people keep learning, iterating, creating, and building instead of waiting for certainty.

There was also a strong undertone around innovation driving innovation. Not in the fluffy keynote sense. In the real sense: eliminate fear of disruption, incentivize creation, iterate faster with teams, and stop pretending progress is linear.

That is the better AI conversation.
Not “what can the machine do?”
But “what kind of growth model do we create when humans use it well?”

Esteban Kolsky: “The Chinese were right. We do live in interesting times.”

That one landed too.

And no, “interesting” is not just chaos. It is pattern.

His power in 3 framing was sharp because it forces discipline.
Three steps. Three shifts. Three moves. 

That is not random. That is a pattern.

🔹 AI as interface.
🔹 Redesigning how work gets done.
🔹 Decision velocity accelerating.

sounds simple, but it is actually useful. And the same with what to do next:

🔹 AI becomes part of the platform
🔹 Redesign the way we work
🔹 Develop AI literacy

Again: pattern.

Esteban also made a point that I think more leaders need to sit with: intelligence and data are being commoditized, which makes context, judgment, and outcomes more valuable, not less. 

If everyone has access to more intelligence, then the differentiation shifts somewhere else.

👉 Too many companies are still treating AI like a feature story when it is really an operating model question.

Now my biggest takeaway from IRL26:
👉 the conversation is getting better when it stops being about AI theater and starts being about patterns, systems, literacy, decisions, and value.
👉 always awesome to meet the CRM and Customer Experience gurus in person. 

More of that please.

#IRL26 #AI #CRM #CX #CustomerExperience #Innovation #Leadership #GTM 

Thomas Wieberneit | Jody Spencer | Kristy Tupper | Pete Smith | Michael Fauscette

Enterprise CRM/CX/AI Advisor | De-risking CRM investments & driving adoption (Unleash your CRM in 6 weeks) | Vendor product & GTM advisory

#CX, #CRM and #AI leaders if you’re done with slideware ... 

and hungry for real signal, 

CRM Playaz IRL26 (In Real Life — The Conference) is where the sharp conversations are going to happen.

This isn’t another vendor parade. It’s practitioners, analysts, operators and execs debating what’s actually working in AI, customer experience, data, and revenue engines ... and what’s still PowerPoint fiction. 

Expect substance, candor, and a few uncomfortable (but necessary) truths about agentic AI, automation, and the future of enterprise tech.

I’ll be speaking at the event and look forward to lively discussion.

You can register for the online experience via 👉 https://www.irl26.com

If you care about outcomes more than hype, this one’s worth your time.

Recently I sat in a meeting where we were told that the AI-built application and workflow would not really cost anything.
Unlike a Salesforce user license.

That is exactly the kind of sentence people say right before the margin problem starts.

The strangest thing about “AI pricing” is how many teams are selling AI features without being able to explain what a successful outcome actually costs.

That is not product.
That is margin leakage with a demo script.

I keep seeing the same pattern:

Teams celebrate adoption.
Usage goes up.
Everyone feels good.
And six months later finance asks the only question that actually matters:

Why is cost rising faster than value?

In agent-led workflows, the mess is usually not in the model bill.

It is in the retries.
The tool failures.
The latency.
The bloated context.
The fact that nobody can trace what the agent touched, where it failed, or why the workflow needed three attempts to get to one usable outcome.

So no, I do not care much about cost per prompt.

I care about cost per successful outcome.

If you cannot show that number — plus retry rate, tool failure rate, p95 latency, and an audit trail — then your AI add-on is not really priced.

It is subsidized.

And that subsidy will not survive contact with procurement, finance, or a serious QBR.

This is the part too many teams still want to skip.

“Customers are using it” is not a business case.
Neither is “the market expects AI.”
Neither is “our competitors have it.”

At some point, every AI feature has to earn the right to exist.

My bet: for AI features, cost per successful outcome will become the kill metric long before most teams are ready for it.

If you still cannot trace the workflow end-to-end, you are not shipping a product.

You are shipping a margin leak.

The next AI fight in SaaS will not be about features.
It will be about whether the economics hold up under adult supervision.

Salesforce’s latest quarter beat expectations, not just because everyone suddenly fell in love with “AI,” but because it still has what most SaaS vendors quietly don’t:

A monetization engine (6% - 9% hikes) that works even when customers grumble about the price. 

That’s the uncomfortable segue we skip in every AI conversation:

We’re mispricing AI.

We pitch it like the future of work… and then price it like an optional garnish.

Either it creates real value or it’s theater. And the “comfortable middle ground” is disappearing fast.

And buyers are already voting with their budgets:

- Bundle it, and they assume it’s free (or not that valuable).
- Charge extra, and they call it a cash grab (and demand proof).
- Go usage-based, and they brace for metering anxiety.
- Go value-based, and the CFO immediately asks the hard question: "How should I calculate the cost impacts?"

That tension doesn’t mean AI is broken. It means our pricing logic is.

Because nothing screams “we don’t know our value” louder than confused pricing.
Wall Street, your board, and your customer’s CFO will punish that fast.

Here’s the truth: we’re not charging for copilots or cute names.
We’re charging for outcomes:

- Cases deflected
- Hours saved
- Risk avoided
- Pipeline accelerated
- Compliance passed without drama

If your AI can’t tie to one of those, you don’t have a pricing problem: you have a product problem!

And here’s the part that stings:

If your AI makes a team 20–30% more productive, customers won’t pay more for long if the outcome is just “same team, same output.” They’ll expect price compression, seat reduction, or usage/value alignment.

So you have to choose:

🔹 Bundle AI (easy adoption, weaker pricing power)
🔹 Charge a premium tier (clear monetization, high scrutiny)
🔹 Go usage-based (clean meter, metering anxiety included)
🔹 Go value-based (best story, hardest math)

The market is starting to reward companies that can turn innovation into revenue, not just headlines.

So here’s the real question:

If your AI can’t defend its price, has it really proven its value?

Join our 5 star Valtech team Gabriel Laliberte, Jean-Philippe Harrisson-Boudreau, EMBA, Craig Gottlieb, Kader Mahieddine and Raphaël Iscar Gutierrez, on-site to guide you through what’s possible with agentic commerce. This is time well spent!

Agentic commerce is here. Valtech is bringing it to Shoptalk Spring 2026. 

From March 24–26 in Las Vegas, our Retail, CPG and Luxury team will showcase live demonstrations of agentic commerce in action, from real-time intent capture to orchestrated end-to-end commerce execution.  

Join us and explore three live demonstrations of agentic commerce in action:  

🔹 Valtech Concierge: Conversational discovery that guides shoppers to confident purchases 
🔹 Valtech Cre8: AI-powered content and campaign acceleration 
🔹 Agentic immersive experience: Adaptive and consultative brand journeys in real time 

Ready to turn agentic commerce from idea to deployment? 

Learn more: https://okt.to/sc0zy9 

#ShoptalkSpring2026

Meet Valtech at Shoptalk Spring 2026 | Agentic commerce

Everyone wants an early warning signal in SaaS.

Here’s the one most teams ignore:

Services slows first.

Not pipeline.
Not “AI adoption.”
Not your dashboard dressed up for the board.

Services.

I came to this conclusion after a great discussion with Terence Chesire last week at the #IRL26 event around PMF, scaling, and where the real product roadmap should come from.

One point stuck with me:

The best roadmap clues often come from what customers were willing to build and suffer through themselves. If the pain is big enough, they will pay services, customization, and implementation costs to solve it anyway. That is a strong signal.

But then shouldn't the reverse also true.

When services starts slowing down in a product category, that is often your first signal that demand is getting weaker.

Because services sits closer to reality especially in Enterprise than pipeline ever will.
It shows who is actually committing.
Who is actually implementing.
Who is actually willing to do the hard work of change.

That is why this matters.

If SOWs pause, backlog shrinks, or bench starts creeping up, the problem is usually not “sales productivity.”

It is one of these:

🔹 the deal was never that real
🔹 the value case got weaker under scrutiny
🔹 implementation feels too painful, too expensive, or too slow
🔹 the product still needs too much human glue to get to value

And that is where the point hits hard:

A lot of companies think they found the path to scale, because they closed deals.

Not true.

If customers are not willing to keep deploying, expanding, and absorbing the implementation pain, your scale signal is weaker than you think.

That is why I would check out services metrics before I trust a polished pipeline deck: 
booked services, backlog coverage, utilization, attach rates, change orders, push-outs. 

If you are purely relying on partners, ask them for their insights and numbers. 

Those numbers are much harder to fake.

Renewals and NRR will tell you later.
Services tells you first.

Question: What is your services organization telling you about your product and demand that your pipeline dashboard is still hiding?

Come join Scott Hermes in the Real-time intelligence with Fabric in a Day workshops

VP - Azure Platform Architect at Valtech | Your Trusted Azure Advisor

When is the last time you invested in your professional development?
Take a skill-cation and learn how to turn real time data into business outcomes!

Saksham Dixit and I will be teaching a free one-day, hands on workshop, co-sponsored by Microsoft, on March 13th, 9 AM - 5 PM PT. 

🚀 Unlock the Power of Real-Time Intelligence
 
Valtech, in partnership with Microsoft, invites you to Real-Time Intelligence in a Day: a free, one-day workshop on turning streaming and time-sensitive data into actionable insights with Microsoft Fabric.
 
📊 The workshop will include:
- Introduction to Real-Time Intelligence in Microsoft Fabric
- Understanding OneLake and Eventhouse
- Creating Eventstream
- Transforming Data with Eventstream and Medallion Architecture
- Creating Real Time Dashboard
- Exploring Data Activator and Notifications

Discover how to transform your data into a dynamic resource that drives smarter, faster decisions. 
 
👉 Register now to secure your spot!
https://lnkd.in/ge6cNfu3 

Thanks to Dr. Nicole Wieberneit for the expert interview and video editing!

#MicrosoftFabric #RTIAD #Valtech #Skillcation

77% of AI initiatives within financial services are progressing from pilot to production. Technical capability is scaling faster than organizational design. New research from @Valtech on AI in financial services shows that AI capability is advancing quickly, yet operating models, ownership structures and governance design are slowing enterprise-wide impact.  
 
Some key findings: 
🔹 Nearly 48% of leaders cite fragmented or siloed data as the single biggest barrier to scaling transformation  
 
🔹44% say improved reliability or risk management is their primary driver for AI investment, while only 12% now prioritise cost reduction  
 
🔹 Just 7% of firms are shifting to product-led, cross-functional operating models, despite these being most associated with speed and sustained impact  
 
If you’re working to scale AI in financial services, this new report from Valtech offers grounded insight into what’s holding institutions back—and where real momentum is building 

➡️ Link to research in the comments!

Most AI revenue optimization is a joke. Not because the models are bad. Because the business is.

I have seen this too often in new AI/Data product launches:

Sales closes the deal.
Marketing celebrates the campaign.
Leadership turns the scorecard green.
And CS inherits a bad-fit customer that now needs white-glove rescue and a second sale.

For a while, everyone calls it success. Then the truth shows up:

🔹 churn hits at renewal
🔹 expansion into the new category stays weak
🔹 forecast quality gets worse
🔹 revenue stalls within two years

That is the scam in a lot of “revenue optimization” talk.

Most revenue engines are not optimized for revenue.
They are optimized for departments.

- Sales for closed-won.
- Marketing for MQL
- CS for retention.
- Finance for margin.

So let’s stop pretending an AI layer will magically align what leadership never did.

If functions are measured and paid against different truths, the revenue engine is already running out of steam.

AI does not fix that.
It scales it.

- You can see it in forecasting.
- You can see it in renewal risk scoring.
- You can see it anywhere a company tries to optimize globally while rewarding people locally.

🗯️ My view:

If your KPI stack is fragmented, your AI revenue optimizer is not intelligence. It is automation for internal confusion. And in most companies, nobody owns that trade-off. Everyone just wants to celebrate the launch.

But where is the learning? Where is the accountability for selling something that CS now has to rescue? 

Closed-won is not the same as well-sold.
That is the metric too many teams still refuse to face.

👉 Who in your business actually owns the trade-off between bookings today and retained, expanding customers tomorrow?

Agent Commerce is a hot topic currently. If you are going to #Shoptalk and want to learn #Valtech POV you need to meed with Raphaël Iscar Gutierrez!

VP Strategy, Experience & Commerce - Retail, Luxury @ Valtech | Customer Experience, Product Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI)

View Raphaël Iscar Gutierrez’s profile

Everyone is talking about AI.
Very few are operationalizing it.

At Shoptalk, the conversation I want to have is simple: How do we use AI to create better commerce experiences, better content, and better economics?

It comes down to 3 priorities:
1. AI experiences that generate revenue (Conversational Commerce)
2. Great content as the foundation of AI (Content Supply Chain)
3. AI that improves operational efficiency, not just experimentation 

Because the truth is: You cannot scale conversational commerce, personalization, or agentic experiences on top of weak product and brand content.

I’ll be at Shoptalk Spring 2026 in Las Vegas, March 24–26, with the Valtech team at Booth #MM-117, sharing how we’re thinking about that intersection of experience, content, and operations. 

If you’re attending and working on discovery, content, ecommerce, product, digital, marketing, loyalty, or retail media, let’s connect.

Emilie Robert Gabriel Laliberte Pascal Malotti Nathan Ley Marc-Olivier Bourdeau Julia Cyboran Kader Mahieddine Justine CARLIER Craig Gottlieb Shannon Ryan Jean-Philippe Harrisson-Boudreau, EMBA Nathan Oliver Michael Rasmussen Parker Roth

AI powered experiences built on strong content

Join #valtech’s webinar in content supply chain for Financial Services. Get inspired on what technology can help you grow your business!

🚨 Financial Services leaders: your content supply chain might be your biggest untapped growth lever.

The demands for faster, more personalised, and compliant content is exploding, yet many organisations are still struggling with fragmented workflows, duplication, and slow time-to-market.

That's exactly what we’ll tackle in this upcoming virtual session:
👉 Reimagining the FSI Content Supply Chain

Together with industry peers Marcus Vinicius Martinez #Microsoft, David Buö #Optimizely, Kezia Luckett, I will explore:
·      How to move from siloed content operations to connected, end-to-end workflows
·      Where AI and automation can unlock real efficiency (not just hype)
·      What it takes to scale personalised content across channels — without losing control
 
Because in today’s environment, content isn’t just marketing output — it’s a core operational capability.

If you’re working in banking, insurance, or wealth management and looking to scale smarter, this is a conversation worth joining.

🔗 Register here – seats are limited:
https://lnkd.in/ejZU-nyD
 
#FinancialServices #ContentSupplyChain #Personalization #AI #ExperienceInnovation #Valtech

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The Battle

Laurent De Grauwe

Nicole Wieberneit

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Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Nicole Wieberneit's LinkedIn Performance

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