Fullfunnel.io

At Fullfunnel.io we are growing B2B companies with long and complex sales cycles since 2006.

We were and still are “in trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, and bring to the table our 30+ years of combined experience and knowledge.

I've been selling and marketing B2B tech and services since 2006. 

What makes Fullfunnel.io different?

1. Ins and outs of selling to enterprise

Coming from the mid-market and enterprise world, I know all the ins and outs of selling to these segments: the research and evaluation processes, decision-making procedures inside the buying committee and the approval workflows.

We’ve been there, done that, and know how to generate opportunities with these segments and influence the decision-making processes.

2. Niche experience

While we could help many B2B business, since 2007 we focus exclusively on two verticals: high-value B2B tech (enterprise SaaS, blockchain technology, hardware) and service-based companies (software development, consulting, cybersecurity, DevOps as a service, etc).

We were and still are “in the trenches”, know the lowdown of these businesses, so you’ll get access to 30+ years of our combined experience and knowledge.

3. Knowledge transfer and in-house operations

We believe that the real growth can only be driven in-house. You need to have people who are in the trenches every day, talking to customers, experiencing the sales hurdles, refining the messages and positioning.

We join your team as external marketing advisors, provide consistent support and training including step-by-step playbooks, templates, marketing and sales dashboards, tech stack and process maps.

As a result, you get an evergreen in-house growth engine.

Co-founder

Trenches - B2B marketing community

Trenches — a community created by B2B marketers for B2B marketers who are in the trenches every day getting their hands dirty in growing B2B companies with high ACV and long sales cycles.

We talk about ABM (account-based marketing), marketing-sourced pipeline, demand generation, lead nurturing, GTM strategy, buyer’s journey, and all other hot topics that are ignored in the sales communities.

Community is FOREVER FREE.

Co-Founder

6-Week ABM Playbook

An actionable account-based marketing playbook and training to consistently land sales opportunities with your dream clients in 6 weeks or faster. 

Cut through the noise and get busy decision makers to respond to your campaigns without spammy outreach, wasting money on enterprise tech stack or expensive ip-based advertising, and significant shifts in the company’s organization.

The account-based marketing strategy and campaigns we are sharing in this playbook can be executed by a team of 2 people (1 marketer + 1 sales) on a Ramen budget.

Author

Scale XL

Helping B2B entrepreneurs install a reliable process to predictably fill their pipeline with high-value clients. 

Scale XL process addresses the 4 critical challenges of client relationship building:

1. TARGETING: identify, target and engage with more of YOUR business’ ideal potential clients, not someone else’s. 
2. ATTRACTING: define, create and communicate compelling messages that cut through the noise and clearly establish your business as a natural answer to your ideal potential client’s problems.
3. QUALIFYING: qualifying which prospects are ideal for YOUR business and which of them are ready, and then applying different processes to sales-ready leads and those that need nurturing.
4. ROI: fix low return and underwhelming results of B2B marketing 

Scale XL relies on a process to build relationships with more key decision makers in your market by targeting, attracting and nurturing your ideal clients, not someone else’s.

And if your business is anything like 100+ niche B2B software and service companies I’ve helped before, it’s likely that my methodology could help you do just that.

To find out if this process can work for your business, feel free to get in touch here, or visit our website at scalexl.com.

Founder

Lean Startup Circle Brussels

We're a group of entrepreneurs taking lean startup and customer development techniques to practice in our startups. We're ready to talk implementation and share data from our experiments.

http://www.meetup.com/lean-brussels/

Every meetup addresses a different (lean) startup topic (minimum viable products, go to market, sales for startups, customer interviews...)

Most startups fail not because they fail to execute and build their product, but because they fail to build a viable business around it. Lean startup helps us validate our business model as fast as possible. Lean startup is a collection of techniques built around maximizing validated customer learning thought fast Build/Measure/Learn iteration loops.

*The Lean Startup is a trademark and service mark owned by Eric Ries.*

Co-Founder and Organizer

Growth Hacking Belgium

Your new business went online yesterday and you've got a marketing budget of zero. How are you supposed to create a movement around your product? How can you get to your first thousand - or million - customers? Starting from zero, it feels impossible. Enter the growth hacker. You may not have heard of growth hacking yet, but you've certainly used the billion dollar brands built by it: Hotmail, AirBnB, Facebook, Dropbox, amongst many others. This group is for people who want to adopt the growth hacker mindset. It is all about sharing hands-on tactics that bring you results.

Grant Snap

Grant Snap is an online service that helps you get your innovation funded by providing guidance in preparing winning R&D grant proposals.

€375 billion gets granted annually in the EU. Get your share.

Sirris

I help software companies in different phases of product development and innovation:
•	For entrepreneurs: to turn their ideas into viable product concepts by applying customer development and lean startup™ methodologies
•	For companies building product for early adopters: introduce flexibility needed to quickly respond to new opportunities and changing customer requests 
•	For companies shifting their focus from customer to market: to master product management
•	For companies established in a market: to deal with increasing product complexity and how to differentiate through innovation

Account Manager Software Industry

Development activities (middleware components of a distributed data storage system, test management system, framework and tools used for automation of system tests) 

Participating in introduction of agile methodologies in two R&amp;D teams and setting up test automation infrastructure

Senior Software Engineer

Sony

Participating in the transition of an R&amp;D team into a product development organization 

Development activities (several packages of DVB MHP standard for digital television, an integrated environment used for development, execution and automatic reporting of functional tests for digital television)

Setting up a test department (conceiving a test strategy and infrastructure, test specifications/reviews, recruiting, supervising and training of testing personnel)

Full-funnel ABM for B2B brands with 5+ figure deals | Co-Founder @ FullFunnel.io

You need more pipeline that turns into revenue. But:
- Most marketing leads never convert to deals
- ⁠Outbound is in continuous decline 
- All the investments in trendy programs, agencies or tech didn’t move the needle. 

It’s time to try implementing full-funnel sales and marketing programs. 

Why? 

So you can:
- Accelerate this quarter’s revenue while building the future pipeline
- ⁠Convert 5-15% accounts to pipeline
- ⁠Bring marketing and sales teams together to drive the KPI that matters the most: sales velocity. 

We helped dozens of B2B tech companies implement full-funnel marketing and sales programs with 10%+ account-to-pipeline ratio. 

We will take your team by the hand and together, implement a scoped pilot program with clear milestones to prove the key KPIs, before investing in operationalization and scaling. 

To learn more or ask me anything, connect with me here or visit our website at fullfunnel.io



Vladimir Blagojević

No VP of Sales ever said: "I expect marketing to orchestrate our engagement playbooks". 
Yet this is what often happens with ABM:

Marketing:

- Creates multiple sales playbooks & engagement sequences
- Designs timeline
- Add best practices

Then, marketing shares with sales 87-pages deck and asks to implement.
One month later: "Sales doesn't use our playbooks and content".

This year we've interviewed two dozen enterprise B2B Saas VP of Sales to dive deeper into the challenges they want to solve with ABM and get marketing hands-on help.

Here are 5 core areas:

1. AWARENESS AMONG STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS

Awareness is not created by running more ads, drip personalized nurturing and outbound cadences.

Awareness is not created by creating more AI content nobody is going to read.

Awareness is created through the engagement with ICP ecocystem:

- High-quality thought leadership program with SMEs & execs
- Top-notch events
- Collaborations and direct engagement with the target accounts
- Constant engagement with the communities and thought leaders

2. CONTENT THAT CHALLENGES THE STATUS QUO

Modern B2B buyers don't need one more "How to cut your costs" whitepaper. Modern buyers want to see:

- Industry trends and stats
- Concrete practical examples and best practices: dashboards, workflows, templates
- How to challenge an internal inertia and status quo

In most cases, sales don't use marketing content because it doesn't fall in any of these categories. 

3. COMPLETE ACCOUNT ENGAGEMENT

Most organizations use lead handoff as a default function:

MQL generated -> assign to SDR.
Webinar signed up -> Assign to SDR

In 2026 to cut through the noise you need to have a holistic visibility:

- Who engaged with what content and ads
- What were historical interactions
- When was a spike in high-intent page visits
- Which events buying committee members has attended

This way sales move from desperate pitching to meaningful 1-1 account planning.

4. BUYER ENABLEMENT

You don't win deals with fancy pitch decks. You win when your Champion can sell your product at the next internal meeting.

Sales can create business cases showing challenges, cost of inaction, and recommended solutions.

But they need marketing's help with:

- Product screenshots that address specific buyer questions
- Relevant customer testimonials and references
- Data snapshots

5. CLEAR MESSAGING

Nothing frustrates sales more than prospects asking: "But what exactly does your product do?"

--- 

In many organization, sales ignore marketing, don't buy in for joint programs like ABM, and gate-keep access to customers. 

How to fix this:

- Make both functions revenue-responsible
- Get fundamental alignment on GTM strategy (ICP, buyer journey, value prop, metrics)
- Fix knowledge gaps through joint planning, involvement of SMEs
- Define a small pilot team on one market/vertical
- Run regular pipeline review meetings during the pilot
- Document and share results before scaling

Full-Funnel ABM and Demand Gen For B2B Companies w/ High ACV | Co-Founder @ FullFunnel.io

Why Sales Ignore Marketing

What's marketing role in sales outreach and engagement?

A VP at Snowflake got this question at a sales summit:
"How can a rep get your attention with cold outreach?"

His answer: "You can't."

"I don't trust cold outreach. But if someone I trust vouches for the solution, I'll take a look."

This is the reality for most enterprise buyers.

They ignore cold outreach, skip your ads, filter out your nurture emails.

But they listen to their team, peers and trusted industry voices.

That's why your ABM team can't just target buyers.
(and why marketing needs to own part of the engagement)

Here's how to engage the entire ecosystem around your buyers:

1. Peer-to-peer multithreading

The other day I heard from a VP of Sales: "it's hard for a young SDR to get the attention from a senior executive".

Their solution? Their CEO and CMO regularly share thought leadership insight on LinkedIn, and book senior executives as guests on on their podcast.

2. Non-decision makers with influence

Back to the Snowflake VP: "The best way to get my attention is to have my team bring something to me."

Executives rarely care about the tactical problem your product solves.

Here's how it works: A power user experiences a problem daily (e.g. losing candidates to poor hiring experience). That problem impacts a business objective the executive does care about (e.g. slowing market expansion).

You engage the power user. They bring it to their boss when the problem comes up. 

3. Industry peers

People trust their peers more than they trust vendors.

Our buyers mention they discovered our content because someone from their network engaged or shared it. Often someone who will never buy from us.

The more you're present and connect to people from the industry, the more your brand or content get recommended.

4. Industry voices 

These can be leaders in renown companies, leaders from technology partners, or even local "micro-influencers" known in a city or a region.

We regularly host partner webinars, local partner events in target locations, and run an annual summit with people respected by our buyers. 

5. Niche media and communities

Event organizers, industry media companies, communities and podcasts. 

♜ Arthur Castillo shared: "The best community sponsorships weren't standard packages. They were custom programs: co-hosting research, integrated campaigns, or bringing community members to our dinners in key cities."

--- 

Cold sales outreach won't get you in the door with senior buyers.

But when the whole team builds relationships across the ecosystem, you become known, and increase the chance of ending up in their consideration set.  

That's the shift: marketing isn't just generating leads and providing air cover.

Marketing creates trust, presence, and recommendations in the networks your buyers already rely on.

P.S. Andrei Zinkevich and me are breaking down the role of marketing in ABM on our next Full-Funnel Live: 
https://bit.ly/48azQnB

ABM ≠ industry & persona personalization. This misses: 
- Actions matching buyer intent & awareness
- Progressive discovery & personalization 

Here's a framework that shows this more clearly. 

1. Level of intent (vertical axis)

- TAM*:  Any company that could potentially use your solution (e.g. My HR solution is used by companies 200+ employees)
- ICP*:  Companies matching your ideal profile (e.g. 200+ people tech companies who are actively hiring)
- Cluster: Priority segment with competitive advantage (e.g. SaaS companies with distributed dev teams, hiring remote developers)
- Need:  Validated problem that needs solving
- Buying: High-priority, can't postpone, actively looking for solutions

(* yes, I know that strictly speaking "TAM" and "ICP" are about fit, rather than intent - but look at my drawing skills, do you think I could draw a 3D diagram?)


2. Level of awareness (horizontal axis)

- Cold: No awareness of your solution
- Aware: Know what you do, no relationship yet
- Relationship: Active back & forth conversation
- Meeting: Discovery calls with buying committee members


3. Aligning actions w/ level of intent and awareness

ANY + TAM → Qualify. Do they fit our ICP?
COLD + ICP → Create awareness
AWARE + ICP → Research to uncover cluster and account insights
AWARE + Cluster → Build relationships, start progressive discovery
RELATIONSHIP + ICP or Cluster → Validate the need through progressive discovery
RELATIONSHIP + Need → Book discovery calls
MEETINGS BOOKED → Discover needs, priorities, stakeholders. Create the opportunity.

(In practice, we use a simpler framework with three lists:
- Cluster ICP: Researched accounts, unaware, unknown need. Goal: create awareness.
- Future Pipeline: Vendor aware, need unknown. Goal: validate need and build relationships.
- Active Focus: Validated need, established relationship. Goal: book discovery calls and create opportunities.)


4. Progressive discovery and personalization 

By progressive discovery, I mean: 
- Account research 
- Progressively gathering insider information, challenges and priorities shared by target buyers via
→ Content collabs
→ Webinar polls/Q&As/registration forms
→ Social and email conversations
→ Transcribed interviews and calls

With each new insight, personalization becomes better. 

--- 

The mistake? Assuming that industry and persona personalization is enough. 

In reality
- Same industry ≠ same challenges. Relevant personalization requires deeper insight 
- Most relevant insights come from buyer conversations 
- Outreach by unknown people gets ignored even when relevant

You have one quarter. 20% of content marketer's time. And you need to generate pipeline.

What do you do? 

1. Place smart bets

Look at your best recent deals and figure out WHY they purchased.

What was the underlying business objective? Why now? Why you?

Drill down to specific attributes, needs, pain points, events and situations so you can:

- Find other accounts with similar needs and priorities (=account cluster)
- Understand what will attract their attention

2. Plan an educational event 6-8 weeks into the quarter

The event (webinar, field event) should address a key challenge or transformation that accounts from the target cluster need to solve.

Why events work:

- Focuses the team on a concrete deliverable 
- Forces them to break down generic challenges into specific jobs to be done, problems, solutions and root causes — then connect them into a narrative
- Each element of the event narrative becomes a LinkedIn post
- Creates a natural milestone with a hard deadline
- Genuinely useful to target accounts

3. Turn the event into LinkedIn content for sales

Sales shares content directly from their profiles because
- They connect daily with buyers
- It creates opportunities to start conversations 

This also shortens the feedback loop: you see which content resonates and leads to conversations. 

4. Break content into three streams 

#1 Expert content (Goal: Nurturing). 
Infographics, templates, proprietary data, how-tos
→ positions sales as trusted advisors
→ each post becomes input for the event deck

#2 Curated content (Goal: Engagement). 
Collaborations, roundups, co-created posts
→ pulls in voices of buyers, peers, partners
→ lets sales use collaborations to start conversations and get insight from target buyers

#3 1:1 account content (Goal: Awareness). 
"Account love letters" and personalized content hubs tailored to specific high-potential accounts
→ guaranteed awareness at target accounts
→ works incredibly well to start conversations with buyers

5. Repurpose outputs

Each piece of content feeds into the next:

LinkedIn --> Event Deck --> Content Hub 
Content collabs (& webinar polls) --> LinkedIn --> Event --> Market research report 

--- 

This is the process we use with clients and for FullFunnel.

In Q4, we did it for a cluster of B2B companies struggling to prove marketing attribution to pipeline while juggling executive pressure to do more with AI.

Results:
- 12 new posts
- 1072 webinar signups 
- 160 people shared their top priorities and challenges with us 
- 52 accounts with deeper back&forth conversations 
- 2 new closed-won deals 

The step most companies struggle with?

Selecting a cluster where they have a highest chance to win, and linking it to a content strategy that will cut through the noise, and help sales start conversations. 

Andrei and me are  breaking this down in detail on the next Full-Funnel Live: 
https://bit.ly/4pSSPZN

"Can you give examples of 1:1 content? And the format you deliver it in?"

Here are three examples, along with a step-by-step how-to. 

EXAMPLE 1. Account Love Letter 

Example: "Here is how I'd optimize the new enterprise pipeline ABM strategy for multi-regional B2B tech company like Agicap."
(https://lnkd.in/ebUxaR6w)

Format: LinkedIn post + content hub + 1:1 messages. 

How to: 

1. Every week, check new engagement and intent signals for your target accounts 

2. Identify accounts that reach criteria to be promoted 
- From Cluster ICP to Future Pipeline list (e.g. repeated visits to high intent pages + 1+ named buyer engaged via social or newsletter or webinar)
- From Future Pipeline to Active Focus (e.g. provided insight about priority problem via progressive profiling)

3. Run account research and define blind spots 

- Map the buying committee, their responsibility and KPIs 
- Research information we need to know about the target account to create relevant content and a personalised offer (e.g. they started an expansion to a new region, challenges: lack of brand awareness in target regions, stronger local competition...)
- Plan touchpoints to get insider information (=progressive profiling)

4. Plan the activities you will use 

In this example, Andrei Zinkevich created the "account love letter" LinkedIn post, and used it to connect to the members of the buying committee. He also created a personalized content hub and used in in follow up (see below). 

EXAMPLE 2. Personalized Solution 

Example: "What do cycling and complex B2B SaaS have in common?"

Format: 1:1 letter sent in a parcel with a book about the prospect's hoby (Alpine cycling). 

How to (continued): 

5. Start mapping your value proposition with the identified KPIs, goals, and challenges of every buying committee member.
6. Write a 1-page personalized solution for target buying committee members. Include:
- Context
- How exactly your product helps to achieve their goals or solve the challenges
- Relevant social proof

EXAMPLE 3. Personalized Content Hub 

Example: in both examples from above, we created a personalized content hub. 

Format: deal room tools (e.g. we use Aligned), to quickly spin up 1:1 content hubs. 

How to (continued): 

7. Map content that can help demonstrate how you can solve the challenges identified in research, along with any relevant social proof, product information and answers to questions frequently asked by buyers 

8. 1:1 distribution of the content you've created to the buying committee members. 

---

BONUS EXAMPLE: Answer to Buyer's Question 

The first line of this post was actually a question we got during our last week's Full-Funnel Live. 

I decided to create this LinkedIn post as an answer, and use it to "show, not just tell". 

Next step: I'm going to share it with the person who asked.

Do reps even matter, if 80% B2B buyers buy from vendors they preferred BEFORE contact with sales? 

Here's what Jon Miller says (quoting Kerry Cunningham's update of 6sense's B2B Buyer Experience Report for 2025):  

1. SALES RELATIONSHIPS AS BRAND AWARENESS 

Reps are a critical part of building your brand preference and awareness. 68% of buyers *personally knew a seller* from the winning company before the buying process began (Kerry’s research).

We see this over and over again. The teams who involve salespeople early in the buying process always see way better results from their programs. 

2. PREVIOUS VENDOR EXPERIENCE > BRAND AWARENESS

95% of net-new wins came from *existing vendor relationships* - not just brand awareness. 

For new business deals: 
- 48% already bought from that vendor
- 13% used the vendor at a prior company
- 34% evaluated the vendor (but didn't buy)

And get this: less than 5% had no direct experience but were familiar with the brand.

The disheartening conclusion here: our efforts to build a brand have a very small effect (5%). 

Category leaders - companies with the biggest market share - have an enormous advantage. 

But what should the rest of us do? 

Jon's advice: 
✅ Hire sellers with experience selling to your core ICP
✅ Give them time and air cover to build relationships outside active buying cycles
✅ When you lose a deal, make sure you have complete notes, named champions, mapped stakeholders, and a clear path to reconsideration. Because that "loss" might be the reason you win the next opportunity

I'd add: 

☑ Double down on expansion and renewal programs 

And practically, in your net-new programs: 

PRIORITIZE accounts with: 
☑ Buyers who are a former customer 
☑ Existing relationships 

INCREASE "RELATIONSHIPS AS BRAND AWARENESS" by:
☑ Letting sellers work on future pipeline and relationships, too
☑ Increasing the footprint in target accounts by multithreading 
☑ Involve non-sellers (your subject-matter experts, executives...) with industry connections 

MEASURE:
☑ Don't only measure revenue from won deals, but also relationships, target account footprint, and ALL qualified net-new opportunities (remember: lost opportunities account for 34% of future won deals). 

Because, as Jon puts it, the deals you win next quarter were decided 6 months ago.

"We struggle with 1:1 and 1:Few ABM. We just can't figure out personalization at scale" - VP of Marketing shared on a call (and was laid off a week after). 

Here's the brutal reality in many B2B orgs:

- Teams pressured to "personalize at scale"
- Any "non-scalable" approach is disregarded
- Teams deploy AI research and/or AI SDRs
- Every prospect receives a "uniquely irrelevant message" (Jon Miller)

Teams get blamed. Leaders let go.

Why? 

Because they MISUNDERSTAND what personalization is.

Personalization ≠ "{first}, {some unique insight / signal}" followed by a pitch asking for a call. 

ABM personalization = matching account insights with individual buyer needs across the buying journey.

Here's how we go from manual personalization to personalization at scale.

1. Pick an engaged strategic account

Together with an experienced AE, define:
- Key questions and information you need to know about this account 
- Sources and platforms where you can find that information 
- Run an actual research on that account 

Save as an example of high-quality output.

2. Train AI with proper input

- Deep insights and research about the target ICP segment
- Always request quotes to prevent hallucination and preserve buyer language
- Give AI detailed prompt describing the research questions and sources 
- Show it what 'good looks like' with the example of high-quality output to use as a quality benchmark

3. Make account research a joint responsibility

AI research is complemented by:
- RevOps input on buying signals, engagement and intent data
- Marketing research of industry trends and competitive landscape
- SDRs research of the buying committee, and recent role changes

4. Include insider information 

The deepest insights you gain only from 1-1 conversations.

SDRs and AEs run regular 1-1 engagements with buyers to build relationships, understand where they are in the buyer journey, and their current needs.

5. Create a 360° account view

Create a holistic account dashboard with all collected insights.

6. Create account-specific content, not "personalized templates"

Match content with the buyer journey stages, buyer persona, and current needs.

Sales distributes it manually to target buyers and listen to their feedback.

Save successful examples validated by the buyers (with responses, engagement and calls). 

7. Feed the proven formats to your AI model to replicate them in the future. 

You'll then only need to polish and customize it.

Same principles: deep insight + playbook as prompt + quotes + quality benchmark. 
---
Personalization at scale is only possible when there is a proven playbook in place.

The only way to create the process and quality output benchmarks is MANUAL first. When you see what works, you can scale it with AI.

But it requires JOINT marketing and sales work, not just pushing your VP of marketing to find a solution to "personalization at scale".

Customer interviews are overrated. 
Use progressive discovery instead. 


1. Turn natural touchpoints into progressive discovery

Customer interviews = conversations you have with your customers, from the moment they are prospect through the whole lifecycle. 

→ First sales calls with prospects
→ Business case building with your champion 
→ Demos & discussions with other buyers 
→ The moment someone signs 
→ Onboarding sessions with new customers
→ Quarterly business reviews with existing accounts
→ Support tickets and feature requests

Even: conversations you have with prospects and customers on industry events. 

Where you make a difference: 

2. Ask the right questions at the right time

Good conversations always focus on their world, and ask the right question at the right time. 

E.g. 

- Business triggers, problems, how did they discover you → initial discovery 
- Cost of doing nothing → business case building
- Purchase criteria → consensus building & demos with users and buyers 
- Why us → when they sign 
- Value → post onboarding, reviews 
- General "out of buying cycle" topics → buyer research, customer events, social... 

3. Systematically process and develop customer insights

Interviews ≠ Insights. 

Record, transcribe, structure and process the input to get to real insight. 

Regularly review the insight and updates with the team. 

4. Turn the insight into action

Insights ≠ Actions. 

Lots of teams collect insight, and only use it to update their copy. 

You can do much more. Refine targeting, qualification and disqualification criteria, account research process, content strategy, buyer enablement... 

5. Voice of customer

Use their actual words. 

Not your positioning deck. Their language. Their pain points. Their priorities. 

--- 

Thank you Patrick Cumming  for starting this discussion. 

Patrick's workflow is brilliant: mine first sales call transcripts, extract the top 5-7 pains/gains, use their exact words in your ads.
He saw a 40% lift in SQLs with the SAME budget. Just "using their exact words to build ad content". 

Bottom line: customer research is not a project.

It's an essential, evergreen process that includes progressive discovery, structured insight collection and review, and continuously refining your GTM as the market and your understanding of it evolves.

Helen Yu

CEO @Tigon Advisory Corp. | Host of CXO Spice | Board Director |Top 50 Women in Tech | AI, Cybersecurity, FinTech, Insurance, Industry40, Growth Acceleration

As the founder and CEO of Tigon Advisory, I help tech companies of all sizes multiply their growth opportunities by leveraging AI, cybersecurity, IoT, supply chain, and customer experience. With over a decade of technology industry experience, I offer CXO-as-a-service and guidance to organizations through digital transformation, strategic planning, enterprise risk management, go-to-market optimization, and influencer marketing.

I have worked with enterprise clients such as SAP, IBM, Salesforce and Microsoft, as well as B2B SaaS, Fintech, Insuretech, and Martech startups. I also serve as an independent board director and a venture capital advisor, where I bring a unique perspective on technology thought leadership, cybersecurity risk management, go-to-market strategy, and customer experience. I am a certified cybersecurity expert from MIT Sloan School of Management, an MBA from Loyola University of Chicago, and a respected industry thought leader, a Wall Street Journal best selling author, a keynote speaker, and a host of CXO Spice podcast. I am passionate about empowering and mentoring the next generation of technology leaders, especially women and minorities.

Director Board of Directors

CEC is a security service integrator with focus markets in manufacturing, healthcare, SLED and Corporate Campus.  Customers with complicated organizations and physical plants rely on CEC as extensions of their teams in making strategic investment and management decisions related to their technology and infrastructure. I serve as Culture and Compensation Committee Chair. 

What happens when the world's leading GPU innovator and cloud computing giant double down on their 15-year partnership?

I found out at Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent, where I sat down with Dave Salvator, Director of Accelerated Computing Products at NVIDIA.

His answer? "We never take our foot off the gas."

Here's what that relentless pace of innovation looks like:
✅ Full Blackwell lineup now available on AWS (GB200, GB300, MGX Pro 6000)
✅ NVLink Fusion integrating with AWS Trainium4; opening NVIDIA's proven, 7x faster fabric technology to custom silicon
✅ AI Factories expanding on-premises deployment options for enterprises
✅ Confidential computing in Blackwell for secure AI workloads in regulated industries
✅ Nemotron models live on Amazon Bedrock

Dave shared something that resonated with me: while hardware advances get the headlines, algorithmic innovation is the next frontier. NVIDIA's Project DIGITS is focused on delivering 40-50% performance gains through smarter algorithms instead of more compute.

The takeaway? This partnership isn't slowing down. With yearly platform roadmaps and Rubin already on the horizon, 2025 is shaping up to be transformative for AI infrastructure.

Watch my full interview with Dave: https://lnkd.in/gAEEFFfC

#NVIDIAPartner #AWS #reInvent2025 #AcceleratedComputing #EnterpriseAI 

Stay current with the latest trends in #Technology and #Innovation,
Subscribe to 👉 #CXOSpiceNewsletter https://lnkd.in/gy2RJ9xg
Or 👉 #CXOSpiceYouTube here https://lnkd.in/gnMc-Vpj

"We never take our foot off the gas. Both companies are very biased towards action. We like to move quickly." — Dave Salvator, Director of Accelerated

Open article: Accelerating AI Innovation: Inside the NVIDIA-AWS Partnership at re:Invent 2025 by Helen Yu • 4 min read

Accelerating AI Innovation: Inside the NVIDIA-AWS Partnership at re:Invent 2025

What’s Driving AI from the Lab to the Real World?

Bridging the gap between experimental AI models and industry-scale applications became the theme of my time exploring NVIDIA’s presence at Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent; from a VC Startup breakfast at Osteria di Brera to hands-on demos across the Expo floor.

NVIDIA unveiled several breakthrough technologies this week:
✅ NVIDIA DRIVE Alpamayo-R1: The world's first open, industry-scale reasoning vision-language-action model for autonomous mobility
✅ Mistral Large 3: Now 10x faster on NVIDIA infrastructure
✅ Nemotron models on Amazon Bedrock: Bringing specialized agentic AI for text, code, images, and video directly to AWS customers
✅ Cosmos Cookbook: Practical resources for scaling physical AI development

The convergence of cloud infrastructure and AI is accelerating. NVIDIA's focus on open models, optimized performance, and accessible tools is democratizing AI development, making sophisticated applications available to startups and enterprises.

My conversation with Dave Salvator, Director of Accelerated Computing Products, reinforced how NVIDIA is addressing the entire AI lifecycle, from data generation to deployment.

We're witnessing a pivotal moment where physical AI, reasoning models, and open-source approaches are creating possibilities that seemed impossible just years ago.

I am thrilled about the opportunity to interview two startups founders from the NVIDIA Inception program: Diligent Robotics and Distributional, where we'll explore how they're leveraging these technologies to solve real-world challenges.

#Startup #Inception #AWSreInvent #NVIDIAPartner

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Are you automating the insanity or transforming your business?

That's the question Chris Hallenbeck, SVP & GM of AI & Platform at Boomi, posed in our latest CXO Spice conversation. And it cuts to the heart of the challenge.

Here's what most leaders miss: Agentic transformation isn't about making old processes faster. It's about fundamentally rethinking how work gets done.

The difference between chatbots and AI agents? Context, connectivity, and control.

Chris shared a powerful example from Serco, a company serving governments worldwide. They transformed how they handle employee certifications, moving from annual checks to something far more sophisticated. It resulted in reduced costs, lower risk, and increased operational impact. 

Here's the reality check that every executive needs to hear:
"AI is actually easy. I can build an agent that is extraordinarily powerful in under five minutes. Connectivity is really hard. Connectivity with quality data is the hardest."

So what separates successful agentic transformation from expensive pilots that never reach production?  The companies that understand this distinction and build the right foundations now will gain substantial competitive advantages.

The CXO Spice Newsletter breaks down the complete framework with detailed examples and the path forward for enterprise leaders.

Watch CXO Spice conversation with Chris Hallenbeck: https://lnkd.in/gWy4XZ_g

Are you ready for agentic transformation? Drop your thoughts in the comments.

#AgenticAI #AgenticTransformation #IPaaS #BoomiAmbassador

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"We're not trying to do the old thing faster. We're saying it can actually be done better with higher impact and lower risk." This powerful statement 

Open article: From Digital to Agentic: The Next Evolution in Business Transformation by Helen Yu • 5 min read

From Digital to Agentic: The Next Evolution in Business Transformation

Who are the AI thought leaders shaping how technology meets business and society?

I’m grateful to Thinkers360 for creating a vibrant community of thought leaders, analysts, and influencers, connecting brilliant minds and enabling real impact worldwide.

These thought leaders provide insights across AI, Generative AI, Agentic AI, AI governance, quantum computing, digital transformation, and sustainability. They help us navigate the fast-moving world of technology and business innovation.

Follow these leaders to stay inspired and ahead in AI, Generative AI, Agentic AI, AI governance, and digital transformation: M. Nazri Muhd Ronald van Loon Bill Wong Dinis Guarda Andreas Welsch Kathleen Walch Noelle Russell (Microsoft MVP, AI) David Sweenor Mark Lynd Amenallah Reghimi Kashyap Michael Fauscette (GK) Ganes Kesari Prof. Marek Kowalkiewicz Tom Davenport Dr. Sunil Kumar Vuppala Greg Verdino FAISAL HOQUE Jair Ribeiro Usman Mustafa Pradeepta Mishra Helen Yu Tim Cortinovis Dr Djamila Amimer Seth Earley Pascal BORNET Nicolas Babin

Full list here: https://lnkd.in/gzDMfnMB

#AIThoughtLeadership #ArtificialIntelligence #GenerativeAI #AgenticAI #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #Governance #Quantum #Sustainability

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What will separate AI leaders from AI laggards in 2026?

Pleased to contribute to the 2026 DATAcated Trends & Predictions Report, and the insights from 14 data and AI leaders point to a transformative year ahead.

My prediction? AI agents evolve from tools to true workplace teammates.

In 2025, we saw AI become multimodal - processing text, images, and voice simultaneously. Agentic AI systems began handling complex multi-step tasks autonomously, with reasoning models showing dramatic problem-solving improvements.

Here's what I see for 2026:
✅ AI agents as colleagues - Independently managing projects and workflows end-to-end
✅ Real-time data processing becomes critical - AI systems require continuous learning from live streams
✅ Synthetic data generation explodes - Addressing data scarcity for specialized training
✅ Federated learning scales - Training across distributed datasets without compromising privacy
✅ Data governance intensifies - Lineage tracking under regulatory pressure
Organizations treating data as dynamic fuel will be the ones that thrive.

Special thanks to Kate Strachnyi and DATAcated for assembling perspectives from Cassie Kozyrkov, Marinela Profi, Bernard Marr, Lara Sophie Bothur, Stijn (Stan) Christiaens, Christina Stathopoulos, MSc, Serena H. Huang, Ph.D., Helen Yu, Pascal BORNET, Jess Ramos ⚡️, Kristen Kehrer, Andreas Kretz, Sadie St Lawrence.

👉 Download the full report FREE: https://lnkd.in/eMevgwDH

What are you most excited about for AI in 2026?

#AITrends2026 #CIO #CTO #CEO #BoardDirectors #Data #AI

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2026 AI Trends & Predictions

How prepared is your organization to bounce back when an AI-driven disruption hits?

That’s the focus of my latest CEO newsletter, following Commvault Shift Virtual, where I outlined why AI resilience is becoming a top priority for executive teams and boards.

AI is accelerating decision-making, increasing identity complexity, and tightening the margin for recovery. Resilience is a strategic imperative.

In the newsletter, I break down the shift toward Commvault Cloud Unity and Resilience Operations (ResOps), and why unifying security, identity, and recovery is essential for organizations building on AI.

👉 Read the full newsletter for the board-level perspective and what this means for the years ahead. Watch the replay here: https://lnkd.in/gN6WmZ9C

What’s the biggest AI-resilience concern on your radar right now?

#CommvaultSHIFT #CyberResilience #CISO #CIO #CTO #CEO #BoardDirectors

Stay current with the latest trends in #Technology and #Innovation, Subscribe to 👉 #CXOSpiceNewsletter https://lnkd.in/gy2RJ9xg Or 👉 #CXOSpiceYouTube here https://lnkd.in/gnMc-Vpj

A Message from Sanjay Mirchandani, CEO, Commvault “The question we’re addressing today is simple: how fast can you recover in a world where breaches a

Open article: Commvault Shift Virtual: The Dawn of AI Resilience by Helen Yu • 4 min read

Commvault Shift Virtual: The Dawn of AI Resilience

What's it like watching the Las Vegas Grand Prix qualifications from the T-Mobile Magenta tower?

Unforgettable.

Huge thanks to T-Mobile for hosting such an incredible experience—the views from the Sphere Magenta Club were unmatched, and the magenta glow fit right in with The Sphere's spectacular light show. Started the evening with my first-ever aura reading, then tried on a racing suit and helmet. My AI-generated racing persona? Nano Banana 🍌.

Finished the night watching qualifications light up The Sphere while hanging out with a creative bunch—turning online connections into real ones, surrounded by the T-Mobile team and fellow F1 fans.

Sometimes the best experiences come from saying yes to the unexpected. 🏎️

#LasVegasGP #F1 T-Mobile For Business #SphereMagenta 

To stay current with the latest trends in #Technology and #Innovation, Subscribe to 👉 #CXOSpiceNewsletter https://lnkd.in/gy2RJ9xg Or 👉 
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How much did YOUR bank take from you last time you exchanged currencies?

Last week, I went to my bank to exchange USD to euros for a trip. They charged me a $36 fee on a $500 exchange. That's over 7% gone.

And I'm not alone. 

Here's the issue most people don't see: banks are quietly taking cuts on every international transaction.

You earn money in USD → Your bank converts it (taking 2-3%) → You pay a supplier → Their bank converts it again (another 2-3%) → You've just lost 4-6% without realizing it.

For businesses processing millions? That's hundreds of thousands lost every year.

Now imagine this:
✅ One account to hold 20+ currencies, so money never has to convert until YOU decide.
✅ Expanding overseas? You can open a bank account in a new country in 60 seconds, from your laptop.
✅ A private global payment network that routes around the traditional banking system so 90% of your transactions arrive on the same day. 
✅ Add on AI agents that handle invoicing, payments, procurement, and compliance checks while you sleep. 

No waiting. No manual transfers. No hidden fees. No 7% cut.
That’s exactly what Airwallex, a global fintech offers..  Airwallex just crossed $1 Bn ARR. (90% growth) by making one thing simple: eliminate the middleman.

Now you can accept payments, hold money in multiple currencies, pay suppliers internationally, and manage team spending, all in one unified platform.

Companies like McLaren Racing, Arsenal FC, and Canva have already made the switch. 

And Airwallex is going all-in: They’ve just raised $330 million at an $8 billion valuation (30% jump in 6 months) led by Addition and with participation from T. Rowe Price, Activant Capital, Lingotto, Robinhood Ventures and TIAA Ventures.

How much is your bank quietly taking from your international payments? It’s time to rethink what global finance looks like.

#FinTech #Payment #AirwallexPartner
 
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What’s the biggest barrier keeping AI from doing real work in the enterprise?

That’s the question I explored with Rohan Vora, Product Lead at Glean, in the latest CXO Spice Spotlight. His answer reframed the conversation around autonomous agents.

We covered:
✅ Why autonomy requires more than just great models
✅ How enterprise context unlocks real outcomes
✅ What it takes to orchestrate work across complex systems
✅ How AI is moving from “helping with tasks” to owning outcomes

If you’re thinking about the future of AI-powered work, this conversation is a must-watch  

👉 Watch the full episode here and see how Glean is shaping the next era of enterprise autonomy: https://lnkd.in/gp2VrFEP

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In a recent episode of CXO Spice, I had the opportunity to speak with Rohan Vora, Product Lead at Glean, about one of the most important shifts unfold

Open article: The Future of Autonomous Enterprise Agents with Glean  by Helen Yu • 4 min read

The Future of Autonomous Enterprise Agents with Glean

Can AI infrastructure be both sovereign AND scalable?

NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services (AWS) proved it can.
At #AWSreInvent, they announced a partnership that redefines enterprise AI:
✅ NVLink Fusion on Trainium - massive model training, unleashed
✅ AWS AI Factories with Blackwell GPUs - your data, your control, infinite scale
✅ Nemotron on Bedrock - serverless agentic AI, no infrastructure headaches
✅ GPU-accelerated vector search - Amazon OpenSearch + NVIDIA cuVS = 10x faster indexing at 25% of the cost
✅ Physical AI at scale - NVIDIA Cosmos world foundation models now on AWS for robotics and simulation

I will be hosting Dave Salvator, Director of Accelerated Computing at NVIDIA, to unpack what this means on CXO Spice.
We're talking:
✅ Why sovereign AI infrastructure just became enterprise-ready
✅ What 20K+ Blackwell GPUs unlock
✅ How to protect your models while scaling fast

The AI infrastructure conversation just got rewritten.

Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gTUeW_hy
What's holding back your AI deployment—compute, sovereignty, or both? 👇

#NVIDIAPartner #AWS #AI #Blackwell #Enterprise

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What does exceptional board leadership look like in today’s private companies?

I’m honored to share that I’ve been recognized as one of the 100 Exceptional Private Company Board Directors, featured in the December issue of Board Recruitment by BoardProspects.

This recognition highlights private company directors who are driving impact through governance, strategic insight, and leadership. I’m grateful to be included among such an accomplished group.

Pictured here are ten of the honored directors highlighted in this issue:
Grace, Helen, William T., Shay, Deborah, Vikrant, Kimberly., Julia, Nina, and Sue.

Congratulations to all of the 100 directors recognized - an inspiring community elevating private company boards.

👉 Explore the December issue of Board Recruitment and learn more about all 100 exceptional directors: https://lnkd.in/g8TVvbe7

Grateful to BoardProspects for the recognition and to the leaders and boards I collaborate with to build resilient, growth-oriented companies.

Stay current with the latest trends in #Technology and #Innovation, 
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What happens when the world’s most advanced AI hardware meets the industry’s most powerful cloud platform?

This week at Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent, the answer was unmistakable; and the NVIDIA presence was impossible to miss.

From packed keynotes to buzzing expo-floor demos, it’s clear we’re entering a new era where AI infrastructure is a catalyst. The conversations all pointed in the same direction:
✅ Accelerated computing is now table stakes.
NVIDIA GPUs powering AWS instances are enabling companies to build, train, and deploy models at speeds that felt impossible just a year ago.
✅ Partnership is the multiplier.
AWS × NVIDIA is empowering enterprises to scale AI workloads globally, securely, and efficiently.
✅ GenAI moved from concept to production fast.
Autonomous systems, enterprise agents, real-time LLMs, next-gen developer tools - NVIDIA’s ecosystem had a gravitational pull all week.

But what stood out most were the PEOPLE who bring that innovation to life: listening, guiding, inspiring, and elevating every moment.

The 1-minute clip captured something deeper than product demos; it showed a team showing up with energy, expertise, and genuine passion:
✅ Conversations that sparked curiosity
✅ Seamless collaboration across teams
✅ Visitors energized by every interaction
✅ A polished, human experience delivered with pride

Because in the end, hardware accelerates AI… but people accelerate possibility.
And this week at re:Invent, NVIDIA showed exactly what that looks like.

#NVIDIAPartner #AWSreInvent #Inception #AI #Robotics

Amy Kaplan Dave Salvator Scott Clark Adam Allevato Jess Ramos ⚡️Jean Kang Megan Lieu Daman Oberoi Hanako Tonozuka Viktoria Semaan Linda Haviv

Is your marketing strategy treating AI as a persona?

At the Schneider Electric Innovation Summit in Las Vegas, I sat down with Abby Gabriel, CMO of Schneider Electric North America, and this shift in thinking became crystal clear.

As Abby explained: "We now look at AI as one more persona. How does AI as an influencer take our information and ultimately provide a recommendation to our customers?"

Think about that. Not optimizing FOR AI tools. Not using AI to automate. But marketing TO AI as a decision influencer.

Here's what else stood out from our conversation:
✅ Energy tech redefined – After more than 135 years in North America, Schneider is leading the convergence through three pillars: electrification, digitalization, and automation.
✅ Digital dominance – Digital now represents 65-70% of Schneider's marketing mix, with AI strategy at the forefront. Their MySchneider portal serves more than 100,000 customers monthly.
✅ Sustainability as strategy – Serving 40% of the Fortune 500 with end-to-end decarbonization solutions—consulting, hardware, software, and services that turn strategy into results.
✅ Ecosystems over egos – With 1,500+ customers, partners, and suppliers at the Summit, Schneider proves success comes from elevating the entire ecosystem.

The future of energy technology is electrified, digitalized and automated. It turns watts and servers into intelligence, ecosystems, and sustainable outcomes.

Watch our full conversation: https://lnkd.in/gJT37MFs

On this Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for leaders like Abby Gabriel who are pushing us to think differently about the future of technology and sustainability.

#EnergyTech #AIStrategy #Sustainability #B2BMarketing #Innovation #Sponsored #SchneiderElectricInnovationSummit #ISNA2025 #InnovationSummitLasVegas #EnergyTechLeaders

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At the Schneider Electric Innovation Summit North America, hosted in Las Vegas, I sat down with Abby Gabriel, CMO of Schneider Electric North America.

Open article: The Future of Energy Technology: A Conversation with Schneider Electric's Abby Gabriel by Helen Yu • 4 min read

The Future of Energy Technology: A Conversation with Schneider Electric's Abby Gabriel

Is your next AI breakthrough just a search away?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace now hosts 2,332 AI Agents & Tools; spanning from software development and data analysis to customer experience and security. Whether you're building, scaling, or transforming with AI, there's a solution trusted by enterprises worldwide.

From 646 software development tools to 489 data analysis solutions, the breadth is remarkable. And I'm excited about the innovation happening at the intersection of infrastructure and AI applications.

I'm going deeper tomorrow on the NVIDIA-AWS partnership and exploring how this collaboration is reshaping what's possible with AI at scale.

What AI challenge is your organization tackling right now? The answer might already be on AWS Marketplace.

👉 Explore the full AI Arsenal: https://lnkd.in/g7qitunD

Stay tuned for insights from my conversation with NVIDIA highlighting their partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

#AWSMarketplace #AI #awsreinvent #aws #AWSPartners #NVIDIAPartner 

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The Battle

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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);}Vladimir Blagojević's LinkedIn Performance

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