Ops Cast

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! AI is becoming part of every Marketing Ops workflow. But what if the most valuable skills in the future aren't technical at all? In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann sits down with Debby Mayen, Global Head of Marketing Operations and Analytics at Logitech, for a thoughtful conversation about balancing technology with humanity in the age of AI. Debby has spent her career leading global marketing operations teams through major shifts in technology, but her approach stands out because she intentionally creates space away from screens. Through reading physical books, exercising, creative pursuits, and meaningful human connection, she believes the best leaders strengthen the skills that AI cannot replace. Together, Michael and Debby explore how AI can expand human potential without replacing critical thinking, why creativity and communication are becoming even more valuable, and what today's Marketing Ops professionals should focus on to stay relevant in an AI-enabled workplace. Topics covered include:  Why balance is essential in an AI-driven world   Using AI to challenge your thinking instead of replacing it   How AI amplifies both strengths and weaknesses   Why creativity, communication, and human connection are becoming competitive advantages   What hiring managers are seeing as AI becomes mainstream   Helping teams embrace AI without creating fear   Practical advice for early-career Marketing Ops professionals   Why stepping away from technology can make you a better leader  Whether you're leading a team, building your career, or simply trying to use AI more intentionally, this episode offers a practical perspective on staying human while embracing the future. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! AI is changing Marketing Ops. But the biggest change may have nothing to do with technology. In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann is joined by Abby Koble, Vice President of Global Marketing Operations at Cornerstone OnDemand, and Ashley Langford, VP of Marketing Operations & AI Technology at Ashley Langford Marketing, for a timely discussion about how AI is transforming careers, hiring, leadership, and professional development. What began as a LinkedIn connection between Abby and Ashley evolved into a broader conversation about the realities of today's Marketing Ops job market. Ashley shares her data-driven approach to documenting her leadership job search, while Abby offers the perspective of a hiring executive navigating hundreds of applicants and an increasingly AI-influenced recruiting process. Together, they explore where AI helps, where it hurts, and why human skills may become the biggest differentiator for the next generation of Marketing Ops leaders. Topics covered include: • What today's Marketing Ops leadership job market really looks like • Why candidate ghosting happens and where the hiring process breaks down • How AI is changing recruiting, career growth, and professional development • The difference between using AI as a force multiplier versus a crutch • Why foundational experience still matters in an AI-assisted world • The growing importance of communication, confidence, and leadership skills • Whether hybrid and in-person work still play a role in developing future leaders Whether you're hiring, actively searching for your next opportunity, or thinking about how AI will shape the future of Marketing Ops, this episode offers perspectives from both sides of the table. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! Despite massive investment in AI, many organizations are struggling to generate meaningful business impact. Why? According to Paul Shirer, most companies are treating AI as a tooling problem when it's really a workflow and adoption problem. In this episode, hosts Michael Hartmann sit down with Paul, Founder & CEO of Infinite Ideas AI and Director of AI & GTM Technology at Bridge Partners. Together, they discussed where AI adoption goes wrong, how leaders should think about workflow design and decision-making, and what it actually takes to move beyond experimentation toward measurable value. In this episode: Why AI is a workflow and adoption problem, not a tooling problem What's really causing the high failure rate of AI initiatives How to tell useful AI adoption apart from "agent sprawl" Why Paul moved away from end-to-end automated workflows, and what changed his mind What a connected workspace looks like in practice Balancing flexibility and governance when every team wants a custom solution Why the data layer matters even more in an AI-driven environment Whether you're being asked to justify AI investments or trying to turn experimentation into real results, this is a practical conversation for operators closing the gap between AI hype and AI impact. Learn more about MarketingOps and The MO Pros community at MarketingOps.com. If you enjoyed this episode, do subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone in the ops community who would find it valuable. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! What if the biggest marketing problem in your organization isn't the marketing team at all? In this episode, Michael Hartmann sits down with Charral Izhiman, Head of Marketing at Bayobab and author of The Marketing Movement, for a conversation about why so many organizations still misunderstand what marketing is supposed to do, and what it takes to fix that from both sides. Charral's perspective is refreshingly different. Her book isn't written to teach marketers how to market. It's written to help non-marketing leaders understand how to actually work with marketing.  That framing opens up a rich discussion about the gap between strategy and execution, and why Ops professionals may be the best-positioned people in the business to close it. In this conversation, they discuss: The outdated assumptions organizations still hold about marketing, and how marketers unintentionally reinforce them Why Ops teams sitting at the intersection of marketing, sales, finance, and leadership are uniquely positioned as translators across the business The SHAPE framework, and why "Activation" is the overlooked layer between planning and results Why organizations romanticize strategy and celebrate execution but skip operational readiness in the middle The Formula 1 metaphor for marketing leadership: everything that has to come together before you can even compete Whether you're in Marketing Ops, RevOps, or marketing leadership, this episode is full of ideas for anyone trying to bridge the gap between strategy, operations, and the rest of the business.  The conversation doesn't end here. Explore the full SHAPE framework and more in Charral's book, The Marketing Movement: https://themarketing-movement.com/ Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! For years, the hard part of ops work was building the technology. Now the tech is getting easier while the people and process side is getting harder. So why are so many organizations still stuck debating AI instead of activating it? In this episode, host Michael Hartmann sits down with Andrea Tarrell, President of the Tech Services line at Trilliad and CEO of Sercante. Together, they discussed the human side of change in the AI world with speed, trust, risk tolerance, and the trade-offs GTM teams are making right now. In this episode: Why the technology got easier,  but the people and process side got harder How much of AI adoption is really a trust and change management problem, not a tech one Fear of job replacement vs. plain organizational inertia AI may not replace your job, but someone using it well may outperform someone who refuses to adapt Solving the tension between "move faster with AI" and "watch out for the risks." What companies get wrong about risk management and tolerance for risk in the AI world Why old governance frameworks may not fit a world of fast experimentation And a lot more... Whether you lead an ops team or sit inside one, this is a timely conversation about innovation, speed, governance, and practical business reality. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone in the ops community who would find it valuable. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! Today, most teams aren't just struggling to build their AI strategies. The real struggle begins when they try to execute their strategies. In this episode of Ops Cast, host Michael Hartmann sits down with David York, Chief AI and Innovation Officer at Helix CXM, to get practical answers about what it really takes for GTM organizations to move from talking about AI to operationalizing it. David has spent years working at the intersection of marketing operations, RevOps, automation, and AI transformation. Together, he and Michael discovered an uncomfortable truth about how most teams are already overwhelmed by manual work, fragmented processes, shadow systems, and operational debt.  Piling "figure out AI" on top of all that creates more chaos. In this conversation, you'll hear: Why the gap between AI strategy and implementation is so hard to close What operational excellence actually looks like in practice, and why it has to come first Why mapping how work gets done today is the critical first step before introducing AI The real difference between automation and "automation plus intelligence" How to identify low-risk, high-value AI use cases (like partially manual lead routing) versus harder ones The hidden costs teams underestimate: tooling, LLM costs, maintenance, and human monitoring Where human judgment is still absolutely required Practical advice on where to start if you're feeling overwhelmed by AI pressure right now Whether you lead a scrappy SMB or a specialized team inside a large enterprise, this is a grounded discussion about the reality of AI in modern GTM, beyond the hype and the LinkedIn hot takes. David also published a new book this week, AI-Powered Growth: A 7-Step Adoption and Transformation Framework, which goes deeper into how Marketing Ops leaders can systematically prioritize and operationalize AI initiatives. Grab a copy here: https://www.amazon.com/AI-Powered-Growth-7-Step-Adoption-Transformation/dp/B0H2QCZG5M/ Enjoy the episode! Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! Why is it so hard for teams to say what they actually think? We nod in meetings, then raise concerns in Slack afterward. We approve work, then reopen it at the last minute. We pile up version 20, 30, 40 of a deliverable, wondering why nothing ever feels finished. In this episode of Ops Cast, host Michael Hartmann sits down with Kira Troilo, founder of Art & Soul Consulting, who brings two decades of theater experience into the world of team collaboration.  Her insight is that most teams are stuck in "performance mode," being careful and polite, when what they really need is "rehearsal mode," where it's safe to be messy, disagree early, and surface the truth before it gets expensive. Michael and Kira discussed: Why politeness is a hidden source of inefficiency, and what the "silence tax" actually costs organizations The real reason approval cycles balloon into endless rounds of revisions How theater's "first rehearsal" tradition translates to designing better team kickoffs Why tools, workflows, and AI don't fix the underlying communication problem Practical tactics teams can adopt this week to give honest feedback earlier Whether AI and automation make these collaboration challenges better or worse How leaders can shift from managing output to designing how their teams work together If you've ever felt that rework, fire drills, and misalignment are symptoms of something deeper on your team, this conversation will give you a new lens and a starting point. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!  Most RevOps advice assumes your organization is already halfway in your success journey. But what happens when you're starting from zero, with no clear blueprint, inconsistent data, and a team that can't agree on how revenue actually works?  In this episode, host Michael Hartmann sits down with Chelsea Gill, CMO at Resultant, who recently expanded her role to include RevOps and Customer Experience. What started as a need for better data and process quickly revealed a full-scale management change challenge across the entire organization. Chelsea and Michael discussed: What Chelsea expected when stepping into RevOps and what she actually found Why most RevOps frameworks assume more maturity than most teams have What a "beta" version of RevOps actually looks like in practice How to change behavior across sales, marketing, and leadership (not just process) The role of empathy and storytelling in building organizational trust around data Whether marketing has contributed to its own credibility problem inside the business If you're going through the messy middle between marketing, sales, and operations, or trying to build RevOps without a roadmap, this episode is a must watch for you. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! In today's episode of Ops Cast by MarketingOps.com, we're going beyond systems, processes, and technology to talk about how Pros are actually doing and executing the work.   Marketing has grown into a measurable revenue engine, but that transformation has come at a cost, and the pressure on operators is now constant, unrelenting, and in many cases, unsustainable. Our guest is Debbie Qaqish, one of the original pioneers of Revenue Marketing and Marketing Operations, and the founder of her new venture, The Growth Factor.  Debbie has spent years helping organizations turn marketing into a measurable driver of business growth, and now she's tackling the human side of that shift, focusing on resilience, leadership, and how marketers can perform at a high level without burning out. Key Topics Include: The evolution of Revenue Marketing and where most companies get stuck today What comes next after accountability and measurement defined the last era How AI is rebuilding the role of marketing ops and the expectations placed on teams Why does the pressure on marketers feel different now than even a few years ago What resilience actually looks like in practice for marketing ops and RevOps roles How "caveman brain" shows up in high-stress work environments and affects decision-making Simple resets operators can use when stuck in fight-or-flight mode What effective leadership looks like when pace and pressure are this high How operators can move from surviving to performing at a high level If you've been feeling the weight of constant pressure, changing expectations, and the demand to do more with less, this episode will give you a different lens on what's happening and what to do about it. If you're ready to think about performance, leadership, and resilience in a way that actually fits the reality of modern marketing ops, tune in! Be sure to like, share, and subscribe to join the conversation at MarketingOps.com Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! What happens when you throw out a nearly finished $500K rebrand… and rebuild it in two months for $22K? In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann sits down with Michael Yehoshua, CMO at WiseStamp, to discuss a decision that most marketing leaders would never make and why it worked. Michael walked into an 18-month rebrand that looked polished on the surface but was fundamentally disconnected from real customer insight. Instead of finishing it, he scrapped the entire effort and rebuilt the brand using AI in a completely different way. What followed was not just a faster rebrand, but a change in how decisions get made. From analyzing customer conversations for emotional signals to rethinking how content is structured for LLM-driven discovery. This conversation challenges many of the assumptions behind traditional marketing, SEO, and brand strategy. This is not a tools discussion. It is about how marketing and operations teams need to rethink data, signals, and decision-making in an AI-shaped environment. Topics covered include: • Why a nearly complete $500K rebrand was scrapped • How AI was used to listen to customers instead of just generating content • What analyzing tone, intent, and “aha moments” reveals beyond transcripts • How Marketing Ops teams should think about capturing new types of signals • Why optimizing for LLMs is different from optimizing for traditional search • The shift in content, backlinks, and site structure for AI-driven discovery • Why traffic can drop while conversions improve • What metrics matter when traditional SEO signals become less reliable • Why brand may become more important, not less, in an AI-first world If you are in Marketing Ops, RevOps, or growth, this episode forces a hard rethink. Not about tools, but about how decisions should be made going forward. Be sure to like, share, and subscribe to Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! Welcome to another episode of Ops Cast by MarketingOps.com, powered by The MO Pros. Host Michael Hartmann is joined by co-hosts Mike Rizzo and Naomi Liu for a candid, no-guest conversation about one of the biggest questions in operations right now, which is what are we actually getting from AI? With massive funding announcements, rapid product releases, and constant noise around AI, it is easy to assume everyone is seeing results. But when you look closer, most teams are still struggling to measure real impact beyond surface-level efficiency gains. In this episode, we discussed the gap between hype and reality, exploring why ROI is so difficult to quantify, where AI is genuinely useful today, and the expectations that users have for what the technology can actually deliver. In this episode, you will learn: 1. What OpenAI’s massive funding signals for the future of AI and operations 2. Why most teams cannot clearly measure ROI from AI initiatives 3. The difference between time savings and real revenue impact 4. Hidden costs of AI tools that make ROI harder to track 5. Why AI adoption often fails without proper change management 6. The belief gap, skill gap, and expectation gap are slowing teams down 7. How fear and uncertainty are shaping AI adoption inside organizations 8. Why the “AI gold rush” does not guarantee real business value 9. What AI agents can and cannot do without human oversight 10. Why strong operators become more valuable in an AI-driven world This episode challenges the assumption that AI automatically drives value and offers a more grounded perspective on how operators should think about adoption, measurement, and long-term impact. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! What happens when an Ops leader thinks like a marketer? In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann sits down with Julie Hamada, Chief Operating Officer at Monarch Dentistry, to explore the connection between marketing, operations, and customer experience. Julie’s path from marketing into operations shapes how she leads today. She views marketing as promise-making and operations as promise-keeping, and she focuses heavily on retention, customer psychology, and the full journey from first touch to long-term loyalty. This conversation challenges the way many organizations think about growth. It looks at why retention is often overlooked, how operational design directly impacts customer experience, and why some of the most valuable insights come from conversations rather than dashboards. Topics covered include: • The transition from marketing into operations and executive leadership • Why the gap between marketing promises and operational delivery matters • Retention vs acquisition and why most companies get the balance wrong • Designing operations around the full customer or patient journey • How understanding human behavior improves internal leadership • The limits of dashboards and why conversation-driven leadership matters • Practical ways to break down silos between marketing, ops, and frontline teams If you’re leading or working in Marketing Ops, RevOps, or business operations, this episode offers a different lens on growth. One that starts with the customer experience and works backward into systems and execution. Be sure to like, share, and subscribe to Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! Why do marketing teams keep adding approvals, processes, and controls… yet still struggle to move faster or perform better? In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann sits down with Joe Bockerstette, Partner at Business Enterprise Mapping, to discuss what is really happening inside modern marketing organizations. Joe brings over 30 years of experience helping companies redesign how their business systems function. A former PwC partner and CPG leader, he focuses on mapping entire operational systems to reveal why teams produce the results they do and where friction actually lives. This conversation goes beyond surface-level process optimization. It explores how hidden system design drives delays, why adding more controls often makes problems worse, and how marketing teams can diagnose the root causes behind slow execution and inconsistent outcomes. Topics covered include: • What a “business system” actually means in a marketing context • Why organizations are structured to produce their current results • How approval layers and control mechanisms create bottlenecks • The difference between documenting processes and mapping systems • “Red Clouds” and how they expose operational friction and missed opportunities • Key differences between in-house teams and agency operating models • Practical ways smaller teams can start improving their systems without external help If your team feels stuck in cycles of rework, delays, or constant firefighting, this episode offers a clear framework to understand why and what to do about it. Be sure to like, share, and subscribe to Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! Social media is changing fast. Platforms are becoming search engines, video continues to dominate, and AI tools are rebuilding how people discover brands and information online. In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann speaks with Stephanie Gardner, a freelance social media and marketing strategist who works across B2B, B2C, nonprofits, and small businesses. Stephanie focuses on helping organizations build purposeful social strategies that align with real business outcomes rather than vanity metrics. The conversation explores how social platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn are evolving into discovery engines, why brands need to think in terms of searchable intent instead of hashtags and trends, and how the lines between search, social, and AI-driven discovery are rapidly disappearing. Stephanie also explains why follower counts and engagement can be misleading indicators of success, shares real examples of how smaller but more targeted audiences can drive better results, and discusses why executive visibility and employee amplification are becoming essential trust signals in B2B environments. Topics covered include:  • The shift from social media feeds to search-based discovery  • How Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube are evolving into search engines  • Why intent-based visibility matters more than hashtags or trends  • The difference between vanity metrics and real business impact  • How smaller, targeted audiences can outperform large follower counts  • The growing role of executive visibility on LinkedIn  • How Marketing Ops teams should think about social, search, and AI together If you work in Marketing Ops, RevOps, or digital marketing strategy, this episode offers a practical look at how discovery behavior is changing and what organizations should start preparing for now. Be sure to like, share, and subscribe to Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! Many Marketing Ops professionals eventually hit a ceiling. The work is important, the systems are running, but the influence over the broader go-to-market strategy remains limited. In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann speaks with Jackson Fisher about what it takes to move beyond execution and step into a more strategic role inside the business. Jackson recently completed ten years at the American Hospital Association, where he began in Marketing Operations and later moved into Product Development.  As an early member of the MarketingOps.com community and part of the Founding 100, Jackson shares how his operations background helped him transition into a role focused on pipeline structure, revenue performance, and product strategy. The conversation explores how operators can translate their skills into business impact by connecting marketing activity to pipeline, pricing, and financial outcomes.  Jackson also explains what it looks like to introduce pipeline discipline in organizations that lack a clear revenue structure and how Marketing Ops professionals can learn to communicate in the language of finance and revenue leadership. Topics covered include:  • Recognizing when you have hit the Marketing Ops ceiling  • Translating Marketing Ops skills into broader business impact  • Building pipeline discipline in organizations without clear revenue structures  • Connecting marketing activity to pricing, Salesforce data, and revenue outcomes  • Creating strategic impact with a lean tech stack  • Moving from order-taker to trusted GTM partner  • Preparing for leadership roles in Revenue Operations and GTM strategy If you are a Marketing Ops professional thinking about the next phase of your career, this episode offers practical insight into how operators can expand their influence beyond campaign execution. Be sure to subscribe, like, and share Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals We're an official media partner of B2BMX 2026 — the B2B Marketing Exchange — happening March 9-11 at the Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA. It's practitioner-focused with 50+ breakout sessions, keynotes, and hands-on workshops covering AI in B2B, GTM strategy, and advanced ABM. Real networking, real takeaways. And because we're a media partner, you get 20% off an All-Access Pass with code B2BMAOP at checkout. Head to b2bmarketing.exchange to grab your spot. MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! The traditional B2B marketing playbook is becoming irrelevant. At the same time, AI is fundamentally transforming how buyers research, evaluate, and purchase. In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann is joined by Naomi Liu and Mike Rizzo for a wide-ranging conversation with Jon Miller. Jon co-founded Marketo, helped define modern Marketing Operations, later co-founded Engagio, and is now the Co-Founder and CEO of a stealth AI startup focused on the future of buying behavior and revenue systems. This conversation challenges long-held assumptions about campaigns, MQLs, attribution, and the systems Marketing Ops teams have relied on for over a decade.  Jon explains why rules-based automation is not sufficient now, how AI changes what marketing platforms must do, and what it means to move from campaigns to AI-orchestrated experiences. The panel also explores buying groups, lifecycle orchestration across anonymous and known buyers, and how Marketing Ops can operationalize trust, brand, and customer experience in a world where AI filters much of what buyers see. The topics that we covered include:  • Why the traditional B2B playbook is no longer working  • How AI shifts marketing from campaigns to orchestration  • What it really takes to operationalize buying groups  • Why MQLs and last-touch attribution are losing relevance  • How Marketing Ops can build infrastructure for modern buying behavior  • The evolving role of Marketing Ops in 2026 and beyond  • Where AI is genuinely useful today versus oversold If you work in Marketing Ops, RevOps, or revenue leadership, this episode will push you to rethink the systems you are building and how artificial intelligence can transform them. Be sure to like, share, and subscribe to Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals We're an official media partner of B2BMX 2026 — the B2B Marketing Exchange — happening March 9-11 at the Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA. It's practitioner-focused with 50+ breakout sessions, keynotes, and hands-on workshops covering AI in B2B, GTM strategy, and advanced ABM. Real networking, real takeaways. And because we're a media partner, you get 20% off an All-Access Pass with code B2BMAOP at checkout. Head to b2bmarketing.exchange to grab your spot. MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! In this episode of Ops Cast, we explore a side of operations leadership that rarely appears in roadmaps or system diagrams but determines whether teams thrive or burn out. Kimi Corrigan, Vice President of Marketing Operations at Huntress, joins Michael Hartmann on our latest Ops Cast episode. Kimi shares her perspective on servant leadership, psychological safety, and the emotional intelligence required to lead effectively inside fast-growing, complex organizations. The conversation goes beyond tools and processes to focus on the human side of operations. Kimi discusses how to lead with empathy without lowering standards, how to navigate difficult conversations with honesty and accountability, and how to create sustainable team rhythms in environments that often default to constant firefighting. They also examine how ops leaders can enter new organizations thoughtfully, read culture before pushing change, and decide where to invest their energy early.  Kimi shares where AI can genuinely support leadership development, not as a replacement for judgment, but as a tool for reflection, communication, and clarity. What you will learn:  • How to balance servant leadership with high performance expectations  • Why psychological safety is essential in ops teams  • How to lead through growth and organizational transition  • Ways to build sustainable team trust outside of crisis moments  • The non-technical skills that prepare operators for leadership roles  • Where AI can strengthen communication and self-awareness If you are leading a Marketing Ops team or aspiring to step into leadership, this episode highlights the interpersonal skills that often matter more than technical mastery. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals We're an official media partner of B2BMX 2026 — the B2B Marketing Exchange — happening March 9-11 at the Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA. It's practitioner-focused with 50+ breakout sessions, keynotes, and hands-on workshops covering AI in B2B, GTM strategy, and advanced ABM. Real networking, real takeaways. And because we're a media partner, you get 20% off an All-Access Pass with code B2BMAOP at checkout. Head to b2bmarketing.exchange to grab your spot. MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann sits down with Jacqueline Freedman, CEO and Founder of Monarch Advisory Partners and Global Head of Advisory at The Martech Weekly, to discuss where modern marketing outreach has crossed the line from helpful to harmful. Jacqueline brings experience across B2B and B2C environments and challenges one of the most uncomfortable truths in marketing today: much of what we call cold outreach is still spam, just better branded.  The conversation explores how incentive structures drive volume at the expense of trust, why deliverability issues are often symptoms of deeper misalignment, and what leaders need to rethink about how they show up in buyers’ inboxes. They also discuss the difference between compliance and consent, how fragmented sending erodes inbox credibility, and why marketers cannot subject-line their way out of systemic problems.  Along the way, Jacqueline shares what B2B can learn from B2C about respecting attention, and what B2C can learn from B2B about discipline, governance, and durability. What you will learn:  • Why cold email fatigue is an incentive problem, not just a messaging problem  • The behaviors that quietly damage deliverability over time  • How to know when it is time to bring in specialized deliverability expertise  • Why serious tone does not equal credibility in B2B  • How to distinguish real thought leadership from polished noise  • What responsibility operators have when narrative drifts from reality If you care about sustainable growth, brand trust, and long-term deliverability, this episode will challenge how you think about outreach and accountability. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals We're an official media partner of B2BMX 2026 — the B2B Marketing Exchange — happening March 9-11 at the Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA. It's practitioner-focused with 50+ breakout sessions, keynotes, and hands-on workshops covering AI in B2B, GTM strategy, and advanced ABM. Real networking, real takeaways. And because we're a media partner, you get 20% off an All-Access Pass with code B2BMAOP at checkout. Head to b2bmarketing.exchange to grab your spot. MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! Balancing change and continuity in Marketing Ops is one of the hardest things to get right, especially in global organizations with fast-moving goals and limited resources. In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann is joined by Adele Kurki, Senior Marketing Operations Lead at Aiven. Adele shares how she has led global Marketing Ops teams through major shifts like funnel redesigns, go-to-market evolution, and operational transformations. She opens up about the challenges of driving technical change while keeping the engine running, the importance of transparency in distributed teams, and the real limits of frameworks like Agile. The conversation covers how to lead change without disrupting execution, communicate with executive stakeholders, and create a growth path for your team in a high-pressure environment. If you are in the middle of building or rebuilding a Marketing Ops function, this one will hit close to home. What you will learn:  • How to manage run versus change in Marketing Ops  • Why transparency matters more in global teams  • When Agile helps and when it gets in the way  • The risks of layering transformation on top of BAU  • Tips for earning leadership buy-in  • How to help your team grow during times of flux Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review Ops Cast. Join the community at MarketingOps.com for more conversations like this. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show! In this episode of Ops Cast, we dig into what it really takes to build demand generation and revenue marketing capability inside a large enterprise organization. Michael Hartmann is joined by Rachel Roundy, Product Marketing Lead for AI at Snowflake. Before Snowflake, Rachel spent more than four years inside a legacy enterprise technology company, where she helped lead a cross-functional tiger team tasked with building modern demand generation and revenue marketing capabilities at scale. This conversation explores the reality of enterprise marketing, where strategy and execution often live far apart, tech stacks are outdated, ownership is fragmented, and meaningful change must happen without direct authority.  Rachel shares what it was like working inside systems that felt frozen in time, uncovering unused or partially implemented tools, and compensating for missing fundamentals like attribution and source tracking through manual processes and spreadsheets. You will hear how marketing and operations teams often struggle to understand each other’s worlds, why that gap persists in large organizations, and what happens when those two sides finally align.  Topics covered include:  • Building demand generation inside large enterprises  • Leading cross-functional change without formal authority  • The gap between marketing strategy and operational execution  • Working around outdated or underutilized tech stacks  • Lessons from enterprise transformation efforts  • How marketers and ops teams can become better partners This episode is especially relevant for Marketing Ops, Demand Gen, and Revenue Marketing leaders working inside complex, legacy organizations who are trying to modernize systems, processes, and mindsets. Episode Brought to You By MO Pros  The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com. Support the show