The Change Alchemist

Anthony Kennada is Co-Founder and CEO at Audience Plus. He was the founding CMO of Gainsight where he is credited with creating the Customer Success category  along with his team-- a novel business imperative, profession and software category that helps subscription companies grow sustainably by becoming customer is epic. He has also been the CMO of incredible companies like Hopin and Front.

By focusing on human first community building, content marketing, live events and creative activations, we developed a new playbook for B2B marketing that built the Gainsight brand and fueled the company’s growth from $0 to $100M+ ARR, and eventual acquisition by Vista Equity at a $1.1B valuation.

He also published his marketing playbook at Gainsight with Wiley in 2019 in a book titled Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love. The book debuted as a number one new release on Amazon.

He has also previously worked at Box, LiveOffice and Symantec, and serve as an investor, advisor and board member to enterprise software startups around the globe.

In this episode, listeners will:

- Understand the basics of category creation

- What's next in category creation

- Why every company should think like a media company

- Is a marketer born or made?

Other References

Geoffrey Moore, Crossing The Chasm:  https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/cvO61IFFRwb

Eddie Yoon, Category Creation: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/EUy63TPFRwb

Useful links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/

Twitter: @akennada

Category Creation: https://tinyurl.com/ycxu4c3y

David Allen is an author, consultant, and Founder of the David Allen Company. He is widely recognized as the world's leading authority on GTD(Getting Things Done) a system of personal and organizational productivity. His thirty years of pioneering research, coaching and education of some of the world's highest-performing professionals, corporations and institutions, has earned him Forbes' recognition as one of the top five executive coaches in the United States, and as one of the "Top 100 thought leaders" by Leadership magazine. Fast Company hailed David Allen "One of the world's most influential thinkers" in the arena of personal productivity, for his outstanding programs and writing on time and stress management, and his groundbreaking methodologies in management and executive peak performance. Time Magazine labeled his first book, Getting Things Done as "the defining self-help business book of the decade."

David Allen is the author of three books; the international bestseller, Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity ("GTD" as the method is popularly known), Ready for Anything, and Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life. Getting Things Done has been a perennial business bestseller since it's publication in 2001, and is now published in 28 languages.

Getting Things Done has spawned an international movement of devoted adopters from executives, techies, soldiers, entrepreneurs, university professors, musicians, students and the clergy. It has given rise to a thriving "GTD" industry of web sites, blogs and software applications. Internet searches bring up tens of millions of references.

In this episode, he talks candidly about his own journey, and how anyone can become productive.

Links: 

Website: https://gettingthingsdone.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidallengtd/

YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxhjDPKfbY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ETZJSXK7zs&t=2s

Dr. Zoe Chance is a writer, teacher, researcher, and climate philanthropist obsessed with the topic of interpersonal influence.

Powerful concepts that you will learn in this podcast:

- The Magic Question

- Gator and Judge Thinking

- The Power of No

Dr. Zoe Chance earned her doctorate in behavioral science from Harvard and now teaches “Mastering Influence and Persuasion,” the most popular course at Yale School of Management. Her research has been published in top academic journals and covered in global media. Zoe speaks internationally for Fortune 500 firms and leading NGOs, and gave a popular TEDx talk, How to Make a Behavior Addictive. Her framework for behavior change is the foundation for Google’s global food policy that helps over 100,000 people make healthier choices every day. Before focusing on academic pursuits, she also managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand for Mattel.

Here’s why what she has to say should matter to you: Zoe teaches smart, kind people to raise money for charity, get elected to political office, fund startups, start movements, save lives, find love, negotiate great deals and job offers, and even get along better with their kids. In other words, she helps people to use their superpower of influence as a force for good.

Sylvia is an inquirer of our future, conducting foresight research on the future of work and life-long learning, the future of health, well-aging, and social interaction, as well as transformations in mobility and retail. She closely monitors the future of the mind and transhumanism. Sylvia also investigates Artificial General Intelligence and AI ethics. She has launched an "Ethics and Philosophy of Futures" think tank within the Association of Professional Futurists. She is involved in the future of our oceans and supports positive ocean tech startups as a mentor with the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. This past year, she focused her research on mental health in the workplace and remote work environments, and on the home of the 2020s, developing a resilient housing framework.

Sylvia has been advising 500+ tech companies on \strategy, business development, and funding for the past 15 years - as an IT consultant at Accenture, Head of Technology at Business France North America, General Manager at French Tech Hub, and Cofounder at big bang factory.  She teaches go-to-market strategy and futures studies and is a published author of speculative fiction with Fast Future Publishing.

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvialeroux/

Website: https://siliconhumanism.home.blog/

Here's a link to Sylvia's mental fitness exercises to stretch your time horizon:

https://siliconhumanism.home.blog/2021/12/04/futures-thinking-12-mental-fitness-exercises-to-stretch-your-time-horizon/

Rebecca Seal is the Author of SOLO: How To Work Alone (And Not Lose Your Mind). Writer and TV presenter. Host of The Solo Collective podcast. She writes about the things which make us human: food, family, work, home.

In the process of writing "Solo",  she interviewed organizational psychologists, academics, and behavioral scientists, read hundreds of journal articles and talked with many solo workers, from professional violinists to TED talkers to designers to explorers, to find out how their work does and doesn’t work for them, and what they’ve done about it.

She also hosts the Solo Collective podcast, which is the #1 career podcast in UK.

In this podcast episode, she provides practical advice on thriving as a soloist, whether you are a solopreneur, remote worker or someone considering solo work.

Website: https://www.howtoworkalone.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaseal/

Twitter: @RebeccaSeal

Instagram: @bexseal

Podcast: The Solo Collective

Monica Ortiz is a Mindfulness, Communication, and Leadership Coach
Themes covered in this podcast:

-Mindfulness, and why it is increasingly important

-Ebb and flow in communication

-Communicating in an increasingly virtual world

She helps executives build high-performing teams by establishing a new Communication Blueprint through Mindful Leadership | Speaker @ TEDx, Google, Stanford University | Published Author.

Website: https://www.exceptionallifeinstitute.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monica-ortiz/

Eddie Yoon is a growth strategist who has helped drive $8B+ in profitable growth for brands, companies and categories. He has done significant research, writing and speaking on the topic of Category Growth and Category Creation. He is also the Co-creator of Category Pirates, the newsletter authority on category design/category creation.  

In this episode he covers a broad range of topics including category design, solopreneurship and personal IPOs.

He talks about:

-->How to create a category

-->Who are super consumers and how are they different from regular consumers

--> How should one go about identifying their superconsumers?

--> Why solopreneurship is more important than ever

--> How to define career success and achieve a personal IPO, and more...

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddie-yoon-ewg/

Website: https://eddiewouldgrow.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EddieWouldGrow

Category Pirates Newsletter: https://twitter.com/categorypirates

Superconsumers: https://tinyurl.com/5e5jwj2f

Nancy Hauge, CHRO at Automation Anywhere, one of the fastest growing companies in the world,  oversees all "people" functions worldwide, including talent acquisition, communication, total rewards, learning and development, and employee engagement. She brings more than 30 years of experience in senior leadership and management consulting roles. Prior to joining Automation Anywhere, she was the chief people officer at HotChalk where she was responsible for all people functions, legal and facilities. Before that, Nancy served as the VP of global human resources and facilities at Silicon Image through its acquisition in 2015, and as SVP of human resources for K12 Inc. through their 2007 IPO.

She sees herself as Chief People Officer because she believes in putting people first even in the midst of disruption. Nancy has won the Stevie Award for women in hi-tech and is considered one of the most influential women in Silicon Valley.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyhauge/

In Season 2 I interview authors, thought leaders and practitioners and provide actionable insights on how you can navigate your careers in the changing future of work.

Reenita Das is an evangelist and thought leader with over 25 years of healthcare marketing and consulting experience,  working toward using technology to change healthcare and improve connectivity and engagement.She is currently working as Transformational Health Partner and Senior Vice President, she is the first woman Partner at Frost & Sullivan. 

Topics Covered in this episode:

- Future of healthcare

- Why femtech is important

- The positive impact of Covid on healthcare

Reenita is also the founder of GLOW (Growth and Innovation of Women), a non profit organization that helps to balance gender equity in the work place specially at senior level positions. She is also a Board member of High Tech High Heels, Silicon Valley, a Non profit organization that is focused on helping women excel in STEM. She is also a Board member and Advisor to a Visual Technology firm called Visual Lab, that focuses on bringing disruption in a experiential economy.
She has lived and worked in over 7 countries in the world and speak at international conferences.
She is a current contributor to Forbes covering healthcare transformation and emerging markets. http://www.forbes.com/sites/reenitadas/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reenitadas/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReenitaDas

Anthony Hayes has spent more than 18 years in communications, crisis and issue management and political and legislative campaigns. He founded The Hayes Initiative, a boutique, certified LGBTQ-owned and operated public affairs and strategic communications firm in NYC, to apply his experience steering organizations’ public affairs and media relations to clients across business, politics, nonprofits, and philanthropy. Prior to founding The Hayes Initiative, Anthony served on Hillary For America’s national advance team where he specialized in crisis management and oversaw media logistics and regularly briefed Secretary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Senators Tim Kaine, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and their senior staff.

Topics covered in this podcast include:

- The future of PR

- Crisis communications

- The evolving role of internal communications

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyjhayesnyc/

Twitter: @AnthonyJHayes

Website: https://hayesinitiative.com/

Khemaridh(Khe) Hy worked on Wall Street for 15 years and thought he had fulfilled dreams he had held since childhood: Income. Status. A nice apartment. But deep inside, he felt comfortably numb and was afraid he'd spend the rest of his life going through the motions. 

🤳 Khe has been called “Oprah for Millennials” by CNN and the “Wall Street Guru” by Bloomberg, and in this chapter of his life,  he is continuing to work with a talented group of builders and tinkerers while always leading with “How can I be helpful?” He is deeply passionate about communities centered around generosity - both enabled by technology but also embracing in-person serendipity. 

🤘Founder of Rad Reads - A guide to the examined and intentional life. Deconstructing our complicated relationship with status, time, and money. ✍️Founding editor at Quartz At Work - Covering management, office culture, productivity, workplace inclusion, career development, and the chaotic lives of working parents. Host of the FWD: Thinking podcast. 

🎙Podcast host at Rad Awakenings - Telling the stories of individuals who are stuck, undergoing transitions, or embarking on new adventures. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khehy/ 

Twitter: @khemaridh 

RadReads: https://radreads.co/

Robin Purohit is the co-founder and CEO of Peritus.ai, the AI recommendation engine for support automation. He has been an entrepreneur throughout his career, building and marketing IT products at both high growth innovators and established industry leaders including Griddable (acquired by Salesforce), BMC and HP Software. In this podcast talks about his career journey, leadership lessons and about his company Pertius.ai

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinpurohit/

Twitter: @RobinPurohit1

Chandar is a results-driven senior executive with more than 25 years of experience in strategic marketing and management consulting. In 2019, he was recognized as one the Ten Most Influential Marketing Leaders in 2019 - https://rb.gy/dmg4gx.  In 2017, he wasrated by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 CMOs in the world to follow for thought-leadership in the digital marketing domain - goo.gl/C5hNNc He has well-rounded experience across the breadth of the software industry ranging from applications to infrastructure, license to subscription & traditional to Cloud computing, and digital marketing businesses. He is a proven Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) with in-depth know-how and proven success in the main pillars of marketing: Go-to-market strategy, product marketing, demand generation, brand building, event marketing and corporate communications.. He has an extensive track record of recruiting & building dynamic teams of marketers including industry veterans & top business school graduates. He is a frequent Keynote speaker at the leading SaaS, marketing conferences & published author of many articles & white papers and has been quoted in more than 2000 press & analyst articles. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandarp/

Support The Change Alchemist Podcast: https://anchor.fm/shobhana-viswanathan/support

Sacha Thompson is a  DEI professional with  over 20 years in the non-profit and tech industries. Over this time, she has seen the challenges faced by executives with good intentions struggling to make decisions around diversity. Where executives are motivated to do the ‘right thing’ when it comes to DEI but may be hindered by their own biases and fears. She has also seen the damage endured by Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) mid-managers when they have felt they are not centered in their company’s DEI efforts or where they have been/are in difficult situations due to discrimination or bias by others. Her work is about removing barriers or providing support in order to get to a place of equality. She helps executives and leaders have that important dialogue, and coach them to the necessary, long-term changes that develop institutional cultures of DEI.  Website: https://www.theequityequationllc.com/about LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachathompson/

Crossing the AI Chasm and Solving the World’s Problems with Lila Tretikov

Lila Tretikov is a Board Director, CEO, Entrepreneur, and CVP at Microsoft. She brings scientists, engineers, designers, and the best creators together to solve the world’s most challenging problems, and empower humanity through technology.

Moving to America from Russia

3:00

“I was always between worlds -- art vs. science or East vs. West. I moved from Russia to New York when I was 15. It's shaped how I think about the world and allowed me to think outside the box.”

Transfer learning: thinking about problems and unique, unusual ways.

Lila switched the focus of her work multiple times. She started her first company while at Berkeley, observing scientists, mapping the human genome, I worked for finance, banking, started another company, then pure software and telecommunications. Nonprofits, Wikipedia, power, energy, green energy companies, now Microsoft, and health.

“I love looking at technologies through the lens of impact on humanity.”

Can you tell us more about your role at Microsoft and what you do there?

5:00

Lila was the deputy for CTO Kevin Scott. She’s the person to jump into a complex project and help teams accelerate. It's hard to take an innovation and make it part of the company's core business. She helps teams cross that chasm. I look at innovation and figure out how to scale.

Artificial intelligence

9:40

The brain helps us design better algorithms. Computational biology will be an enormous and exciting frontier.

The human brain has 100 trillion connections. The leading supercomputer has 172 billion hyper parameters, growing astronomically fast. At some point, supercomputers will match the human capacity.”

Humans are more computationally efficient, extremely low powered, 20 watts to operate. Supercomputers with 30,000 GPUs take 10 times that amount.

10:30

The human brain is also multimodal. We have many senses, including hidden senses. We imagine the world that our brain processes. The human brain trains incrementally and builds upon prior knowledge all the time. We've built up knowledge over and over again. AI is good at specialized tasks. It can translate across human languages.

We can learn from biological constructs and apply them to computer science, then accelerate biological discovery, and create a flywheel in computational biology and AI.

Topics covered in this podcast:

- Why companies of all sizes should adopt Intelligent Automation

- Role of AI in digital transformation

- Technologies used in Intelligent automation: RPA, ML, Computer Vision

- Technology and business frameworks for intelligent automation

Pascal Bornet is a recognized global expert, thought leader, and pioneer in the field of intelligent automation (IA). He is a senior executive with 20+ years of experience leading digital business transformations and creations. He founded and led the "Artificial Intelligence and Automation" practices for Mckinsey & Company and Ernst & Young (EY), where he drove hundreds of IA transformations for corporates, across industries.
He is passionate about the capacity of IA to make our world more human.

Bornet is a member of the Forbes Technology Council. He was awarded Global Top Voice in Technology 2019 with more than 300,000 followers on LinkedIn and Twitter. He is one of the authors of the first book on Intelligent Automation and Hyperautomation www.intelligentautomationbook.com
:

Key Quotes:

[10:10] “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

[13:50] “Intelligent automation is a combination of methods that involve people, organization, processes, and technologies.”

“Everything comes with passion. But it is not easy. You have to find your passion and this passion should fit you or your personality.”

[33:33-33:35] “Technology makes our world more human.”

Resources
Read more about Bornet here:
www.linkedin.com/in/pascalbornet/

Yousuf is a managing Partner at Ridge Ventures. Having held many operational roles in his previous positions, he’s uniquely qualified to not only grow Ridge’s portfolio, but more importantly to support founders through the vantage point of deep start-up experience.

Prior to joining Ridge, he was the first ever CIO of Automation Anywhere, the CIO and Vice President of Customer Success at cloud-based AI platform Moveworks, as well as CIO of Pure Storage, Qualys, and Hult International Business School. He continues to host monthly CIO events amongst his peers which have become known as group therapy dinners where problems solving and design partnership lead conversations.  Yousuf currently serves as a board director for Polly, the leading survey solution in Slack and Microsoft Teams.

Topics covered in this episode: 

- Role of CIOs in startups

- How to scale startups to enterprise-readiness

- Post-Covid Trends in venture funding