Julie Liu, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at AvePoint, shares her journey from consulting and market research to shaping resilient go-to-market systems. She discusses aligning long-term strategy with fast-moving markets, building connected revenue functions, and leveraging trusted data and AI to drive scalable growth while balancing global brand consistency with regional relevance.

Welcome to the interview series, Julie. Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your journey as a marketer?

Great to be here! I currently serve as Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at AvePoint, but my path into marketing wasn’t a straight line. I started my career in consulting and market research, which gave me an early appreciation for systems: how decisions compound over time, where tradeoffs matter, and how short‑term choices affect long-term outcomes.

That foundation still shapes how I work today. My role now is less about any single campaign or channel and more about ensuring that our go‑to‑market engine is operating as a cohesive system. It’s about knowing when to push, when to pull, and how to keep tuning the organization so it can scale without losing agility. At its core, my work has always been about building teams and operating models that are resilient enough to grow and flexible enough to evolve.

As a GTM and marketing leader, how do you align long-term strategy with fast-moving market demands?

One of the most important mindset shifts is accepting that strategy isn’t static. I think of strategy as a living operating system anchored to a clear North Star. That North Star represents long‑term value and direction, but the execution path toward it is constantly changing.

If you think about it through a car engine lens, sometimes alignment actually requires a downshift. Not because you’re slowing down, but because you need more torque, more control, so that when you accelerate, you do so with intention. Once teams internalize that idea, strategy stops feeling like a constraint and starts functioning as a guide.

A good example is the rise of agentic AI. As a SaaS company in the data protection space, we help organizations make AI an accelerator, not a risk. Data governance has always been foundational to our value proposition, but it has become even more critical now as AI systems move from assistive to autonomous. As a marketing organization, we were able to highlight decades of technological expertise and reframe our message to fit the AI moment that’s driving GTM motions.

How has the role of different revenue functions (marketing, sales, CS, product) evolved within a broader GTM setup?

Over time, I’ve seen organizations shift from function-first thinking to system-first thinking. Marketing, sales, product, and customer success still have distinct responsibilities, but performance no longer comes from optimizing each function in isolation.

The real gains happen when those functions are intentionally designed as one continuous customer journey. Product insights inform messaging. Messaging shapes pipeline quality. Pipeline expectations influence onboarding. Onboarding feeds retention and expansion. When those loops are connected, feedback becomes faster and outcomes become more predictable.

At that point, you’re no longer just running campaigns or supporting sales motions—you’re building a repeatable growth system that can adapt as markets and customers evolve.

How does data management influence modern marketing strategy at an enterprise level?

At enterprise scale, data management stops being a backend concern and becomes a strategic enabler. The more AI, automation, and personalization you introduce, the more dependent marketing becomes on trusted, well‑governed data. We live and breathe by having a trusted foundation for AI, not only because it applies to our GTM engine and integrated technology stack but also because it’s the very value we provide to our customers.

Without that foundation, even the most sophisticated tools fall apart. Personalization becomes inconsistent, measurement becomes unreliable, and risk increases. Good data governance creates the conditions where marketing can move quickly without creating fragmentation or exposure. It’s what allows ambition and discipline to coexist.

“Sometimes alignment actually requires a downshift. Not because you’re slowing down, but because you need more torque, more control, so that when you accelerate, you do so with intention.”

Can you share your most challenging yet rewarding marketing campaign experience?

The most rewarding moments in marketing are when abstract strategy becomes something tangible. We experienced that through a brand campaign built around sequential storytelling in airports: a series of connected moments designed to reinforce a single narrative as people moved through space and time.

It required an incredible level of diligence: understanding the audience, the seasonality, the flow of traffic, and how each touchpoint contributed to the goal. But that rigor is what made the work resonate. The campaign ultimately became foundational for how we approached brand strategy going forward.

It also reflected a broader organizational evolution: from a more product‑led posture toward more deliberate brand building. Often, the hardest part of that shift isn’t execution; it’s the internal belief required to invest in the unknown when your next phase of growth demands a leap of faith.

How do you balance global brand consistency with regional relevance when running campaigns across markets?

I believe the brand is only as strong as it is in the eyes of the audience experiencing it. The idea that global consistency means saying the same thing everywhere is, in many cases, a misconception.

True consistency often requires localization. If messaging isn’t regionally relevant, it doesn’t land, which can both increase cost and erode trust. The real challenge is resourcing. Localization has real costs, which is why having a clear North Star matters so much.

Rather than dozens of fragmented brand efforts, I believe in focusing on one or two scalable global campaigns per year that can be meaningfully localized. That approach allows organizations to build brand equity while still sustainably supporting demand generation.

Where do you draw the line between AI-powered automation and human-led creativity in global marketing?

I don’t think there’s a clean line. I think of it as a feedback loop.

AI is incredibly effective at expanding inputs: data, ideas, scale, speed. Human creativity is what provides judgment, emotional intelligence, and conviction. AI can provoke ideas and accelerate execution, but the moments that create trust, recognition, or belief still come from humans. Brand impact is what you FEEL.

In global marketing, AI can absolutely build the foundation. But humans remain responsible for meaning, deciding what matters, what resonates, and what’s worth saying in the first place.

What leadership principles have you found most effective in developing high-performing, future-ready GTM teams?

The most important investment any organization can make is in human capital. High‑performing teams need space to think, challenge assumptions, and adapt ideas to new contexts.

We bring in people with strong experience and give them room to shape what excellence looks like within the reality of our organization: where we’ve been and where we’re going. The biggest risk isn’t making the wrong decision; it’s getting stuck in a single way of thinking. Future‑ready teams stay strong by staying open.

About Julie Liu:

With over a decade of experience in marketing and strategic initiatives, Julie Liu focuses on building scalable go-to-market frameworks and driving organizational innovation. Drawing on deep expertise in data management and global marketing strategy, she helps shape resilient growth models. Working closely with cross-functional teams, she champions customer-centric thinking, leadership, and adaptive strategies that help organizations thrive in an evolving technology landscape.

The post Building a Resilient GTM Engine: Julie Liu on Strategy, Data, and AI-Driven Marketing appeared first on iTechSeries.

Camila Almeida, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at DeepL, shares her journey from journalism in Brazil to leading marketing strategies at global brands and a unicorn FinTech. She discusses scaling B2B campaigns, building brand trust, leveraging AI for actionable insights, balancing brand awareness with demand generation, and fostering cross-team collaboration to drive measurable growth and impact.

Camila, Welcome to the interview series. Could you tell us about yourself and your journey as a marketer?

My journey as a marketer started as a journalist back home in Brazil. Writing stories, connecting with different audiences, and always digging deeper to find the truth paved the path for the marketer I am today.

When I moved to London over a decade ago, my first job in marketing was as an insights analyst at a global media agency. There, I learned the basics of data measurement, media buying strategies, and campaign management. A little over a year later, I moved to a unicorn FinTech company where I spent the bulk of my career. I saw this company grow from under a thousand to five thousand employees, go through a rebranding, launch countless new products and features, and eventually IPO. Navigating that journey under the pressure of operating efficient marketing campaigns truly shaped my professional life.

I now work at DeepL, a language AI company that is breaking down language barriers with cutting-edge products. I guess you could say that disruptive, forward-thinking companies are the environments where I thrive.

How has marketing’s role evolved within a broader go-to-market revenue org setup?

I think marketing has evolved into a strategic connector for the entire revenue organization. It’s no longer just about generating demand but orchestrating a much more complex matrix that spans across different functions like product, finance, and sales.

And I’m a firm believer in the power of synergy. No function in a business can operate efficiently in isolation. For a product launch to be successful and for the sales team to close deals, a strong brand has to be built first, and building a brand is at the core of what we marketers do, regardless of our specific role.

Every piece of research, every news article, every ad, and every web page helps to build a brand that needs to be seen, remembered, and—dare I say—loved! Successful businesses have figured this out and are aiming to have marketing input embedded in every important business decision.

Having worked extensively in performance marketing, what strategies have you found most effective for scaling campaigns in B2B?

Business users are still users, and a good B2B strategy needs to have the same human elements that B2C campaigns do. It’s unfortunate that companies targeting business audiences often miss out on the importance of humanizing their brands.

In my view, every good strategy includes speaking directly to users and showing how relevant your brand is to their industry, their function, and their day-to-day work. It’s about understanding what prompts them to buy and making your positioning all about solving that specific problem while ensuring your message reaches them wherever they are.

What follows is a continuous process of testing, iterating, validating, and scaling.

What’s your approach to ensuring a consistent brand message across multiple channels in an integrated marketing strategy?

An integrated marketing strategy is deeply rooted in a profound knowledge of your product, customers, market, and competitors. Where does your brand excel? What problem does it solve and for whom? How is it better than the competition?

Once you answer these questions, you have the foundation for your brand message. From there, it’s a journey that includes choosing the right channel mix, testing, iterating, validating, and, let’s not forget, localizing.

While consistency is a north star, you have to adapt to what resonates with different audiences, channels, and markets. It’s a big differentiator for global brands to get this balance right. Consistency is key, but being able to convey your core message in as many different ways as possible is equally important.

“Marketing has evolved into a strategic connector for the entire revenue organization. It’s no longer just about generating demand but orchestrating a much more complex matrix that spans across product, finance, and sales.”

As a growth marketer, how do you ensure keeping a balance between brand awareness and lead generation?

We’ve had so many resources on the importance of brand building for so long, including case studies and success stories from companies that have really invested in it. Still, putting it into practice is a whole different story; it’s a tough call to move a significant chunk of your budget to channels and strategies that don’t show an immediate return on investment.

Ultimately, building a brand is a long-term play. It’s about efficiently creating demand that your lower-funnel channels can then capture. As marketers, we’re all trying to strike this balance as best we can with what we’ve got. Fortunately, there are well-developed models available that can factor in how brand awareness impacts things in different situations. If brands are serious about finding this balance, it’s worth investing in building and adopting these models. After all, if people don’t know or trust your brand, they won’t consider buying your product.

How do you see AI changing the ways marketers analyze data and influence customer decisions?

Working at an AI company, I know that its greatest power is to unlock human potential, automating and easing processes so that we can operate more efficiently as both individuals and businesses.

I use AI every day, and I can confidently say it impacts the vast majority of my tasks. From spotting patterns in data and testing new ideas to automating tedious analytical work, AI has freed up my time to focus on storytelling, building human connections, and all the things that truly require a human brain. The real skill now isn’t knowing every tool, but knowing how to ask the right questions and use AI to turn insight into action.

At the end of the day, marketers have always adapted to new mediums, models, and tactics. I see the same happening with AI; as a function and as professionals, we will undoubtedly adapt.

Could you walk us through a marketing experience that tested you the most and what you learned from it?

The most challenging experiences in marketing often involve a lot of cross-team collaboration. Having gone through rebrands and product launches, I can confidently say that building efficient processes in alignment with multiple functions is always a challenge, especially under the pressure of generating measurable business results.

But being equipped with knowledge, rooting your suggestions in well-presented and well-thought-out data, and being able to hold others accountable helps. It’s equally important to keep in mind that people in different functions have different priorities and perspectives, so you’ll need to be able to navigate clashing ideas, too. A lot of professional growth comes from exercising this ability while staying humble and empathetic.

Beyond that, my most rewarding experiences have been with teams that are aligned and committed to a shared mission. Operating as a manager, it’s been crucial to me to  empower my teams, celebrate wins, and create an environment where everyone feels safe to take risks and voice their ideas. Marketing is a field that is always changing, and nurturing the talent you have is key to staying ahead.

What would be your advice to aspiring marketers looking to build a successful career?

I would like to offer the perspective of an immigrant and a woman of color operating in male-dominated industries. The reality is, I’ve had to prepare twice as much, be that much braver to voice my opinions, and work that much harder to carve out a space for myself where I feel heard, seen, and respected.

Regardless of who you are or who you were told to be, my advice is to work towards where you want to be, figure out what and who you need to get there, and go forth with orchestrating your plan. You will fail, learn, and ultimately grow.

The other thing is to be curious, rigorous, and humble. I always learned and developed fastest by asking questions, testing my assumptions, and having rigor in building my processes. A lot of what we marketers do is based on assumptions, and as you grow, you’ll develop your own instinct of what works—trust that instinct, too.

About Camila Almeida

Camila Almeida, Senior Growth Marketing Manager at DeepL, began her career as a journalist in Brazil, honing storytelling and audience engagement skills that shaped her marketing approach. After moving to London, she worked as an insights analyst and later at a unicorn FinTech, driving campaigns through rebrands, product launches, and IPOs. Today, she thrives at DeepL, leveraging data, strategy, and innovation to break language barriers and scale impactful marketing initiatives.

The post Scaling Campaigns, Brand Consistency, and Cross-Team Synergy: Camila Almeida on Growth Marketing appeared first on iTechSeries.

Oriana Brás, Head of Cross Marketing & Refunds at Fujitsu, shares her journey from integrated campaigns and loyalty programs to large-scale rebranding and enablement initiatives. She discusses scaling global programs with local relevance, leveraging AI for future-proof strategies, driving cross-functional alignment, and positioning marketing as a growth engine that delivers measurable impact.

Welcome to the interview series, Oriana. Tell us about your journey as a marketer.

My journey as a marketer has always been about connecting strategy with execution and making growth tangible. I started at Intel and later on at ASUS, in roles that combined creativity with structure-managing integrated campaigns, loyalty programs, and content that drove engagement across different audiences. Over time, I joined Fujitsu and expanded into leading large-scale enablement initiatives, including partner programs and rebranding projects (Fsas Technologies) that required cross-functional alignment and careful stakeholder management.

One of the defining aspects of my career has been working in international environments. I’ve had the chance to run marketing programs across diverse European regions, which taught me how to balance consistency in brand with local resonance. That experience gave me a real appreciation for scalability—building frameworks and processes that work across countries—while still leaving room for local adaptation.

More recently, I’ve been driving initiatives that connect marketing more directly to business transformation and improve the marketing organization to be future-proofed. That means building programs and implementing tools that create awareness and generate measurable impact across sales and customer success. What excites me most is when I can take a complex challenge—like aligning multiple stakeholders, leveraging AI, or translating a brand evolution into a clear narrative—and turn it into something actionable, engaging, and growth-oriented.

At the heart of my journey, I’d say I’ve always thrived at the intersection of creativity, data, and collaboration—making sure marketing is not just about communication but about driving real business outcomes.

You’ve worked on integrated campaigns, loyalty programs, and large-scale enablement initiatives. What makes a marketing program both scalable and personal?

What makes a marketing program both scalable and personal is striking the balance between structure and empathy. Scalability comes from having the right frameworks in place–clear processes, automation, enablement tools, and cross-functional alignment that allow a program to expand across regions, partners, or customer segments without losing efficiency.

But the personal side comes from really understanding the audience. In my experience running integrated campaigns and loyalty programs, the programs worked best when we designed them around actual human behaviors and needs, not just generic personas. That meant tailoring messaging, creating touchpoints that felt relevant, and giving local teams the flexibility to adapt content while staying within a strong brand framework.

When I worked on large-scale enablement initiatives, for example, the scalability was about ensuring consistency across all stakeholders, but the personalization came from how we empowered teams to adapt messaging in their own voice. That’s what makes people feel like the program speaks to them, not at them.

So for me, a program is scalable when it has the right backbone processes, data, and tools-and it’s personal when it allows for human connection, cultural nuance, and storytelling. It’s when you can roll something out across 10 countries, but each market still feels like it was designed with them in mind. That’s the sweet spot.

As cross-functional alignment deepens across sales, customer success, and RevOps, what new responsibilities or opportunities will emerge for marketing?

As alignment deepens across Sales, Customer Success, and RevOps, marketing is moving far beyond just generating leads. It’s becoming a true growth engine that supports the entire customer lifecycle. That means marketing will increasingly share revenue accountability-not just passing leads to sales, but co-owning pipeline health, retention, and even expansion opportunities.

At the same time, we’ll play a bigger role in orchestrating the customer journey. Instead of focusing only on awareness or acquisition, marketing is already helping to create seamless, personalized experiences that carry through onboarding, adoption, loyalty, and advocacy. This is where our creativity and data skills really combine to make an impact.

And when marketing has a 360-degree view—from brand perception to campaign analytics, customer sentiment, and market trends—we’re uniquely positioned to translate insights into strategy. By connecting what we see in the market with what Sales and CS experience on the ground, we can influence not just campaigns but also product direction and business decisions.

Looking ahead, I see AI, account-based strategies, and even community-led growth accelerating this shift. AI will give us predictive insights and personalization on a scale; ABM will make marketing more targeted and relevant; and community-driven approaches will create deeper trust and advocacy. So the real opportunity is for marketing to become the glue of the organization-blending creativity, data, and storytelling to keep the customer at the center of growth, today and in the future.

“At the heart of my journey, I’d say I’ve always thrived at the intersection of creativity, data, and collaboration—making sure marketing is not just about communication but about driving real business outcomes.”

When building marketing strategies, how do you ensure they are both ambitious and realistic enough to drive results?

I like to start by setting a “North Star”-the ambitious vision of what we want to achieve, whether that’s growth targets, customer engagement goals, or transformation outcomes. Then I anchor it in data: past performance, resource availability, and market context.

I’ve learned that ambition without realism can demotivate teams, but too much caution can limit impact. So I break big objectives into achievable phases—building momentum with quick wins while keeping the long-term vision intact. For example, during large-scale rebranding initiatives, the ambitious goal was to create a unified new identity across Europe. To make it realistic, we phased it by regions and milestones, aligning stakeholders along the way and celebrating progress at each step.

That balance keeps strategies inspiring but also actionable enough to deliver measurable results.

How have AI-powered tools reshaped the way you plan, execute, and scale marketing campaigns?

AI has been a real game-changer in my work. On the planning side, it supports analysis and gives us predictive insights into customer behavior and campaign performance, which helps us make smarter decisions. In execution, it accelerates content creation, personalization, and even localization, allowing us to roll out campaigns faster and more efficiently across multiple markets.

But what I find most valuable is how AI frees up human creativity. Instead of spending time on repetitive or manual tasks, I can focus on strategy, storytelling, and stakeholder engagement—the things that truly need a human touch. For instance, when designing enablement content for different European regions, AI helped with rapid translation and adaptation, even with the creation of the main message, but always allowing the marketer to focus on personalizing the narrative and making sure it’s inspiring and aligned with the brand.

So AI hasn’t replaced the marketer. It has amplified us, giving us more bandwidth to be strategic and innovative.

Can you tell us about your most challenging yet memorable marketing campaign experience?

One of the most challenging yet memorable experiences was to be a part of the leadership team of a large-scale rebranding and onboarding partner enablement initiative. Both projects involved coordinating across multiple regions, managing compliance with partner requirements, and aligning diverse stakeholders-all under very tight deadlines.

For the rebranding project, it was challenging because it wasn’t just about the creative execution-it was about change management. People needed to feel confident in the new identity and supported through the transition. We solved this by combining strong project management frameworks with open communication and training, so everyone felt part of the journey and a real branding champion!

On the partner enablement initiative for onboarding, the reason it stands out as memorable is that it went beyond just delivering a campaign. It automated all the onboarding processes for new partners, building trust, strengthening partner relationships, and creating a real sense of shared achievement. That experience reinforced for me that the most successful campaigns are not just about marketing outputs but about the collaboration and trust you build along the way.

When managing marketing programs in diverse regions, how do you ensure strategies resonate locally without compromising brand consistency?

I believe in a ‘global backbone, local heartbeat’ approach. The backbone is the set of brand guidelines, messaging pillars, and assets that ensure consistency. But the heartbeat comes from empowering local teams to adapt those elements with cultural nuance and relevance.

For example, in European loyalty and enablement programs I’ve worked on, we kept the central structure—the cadence, reporting, and branding—the same across markets. But we allowed local teams to adapt the messaging and channels to make sure it felt authentic to their audiences.

To make this work, I always build in feedback loops—checking in with local teams early in the process, not just after launch. That way, the program isn’t just rolled out to them; it’s built with them. That’s how you achieve both resonance and consistency.

What guidance would you give aspiring marketers to stay relevant and be effective in today’s fast-changing digital landscape?

My advice would be to stay curious and adaptable. The tools and platforms will keep changing, but the fundamentals of storytelling and customer understanding remain the same.

I’d also encourage aspiring marketers to build strong cross-functional relationships. Marketing doesn’t exist in isolation anymore—it thrives when connected to Sales, Customer Success, and Product. And finally, invest in data literacy. Being able to measure impact, understand analytics, and translate numbers into strategy is one of the most valuable skills in today’s landscape. Pair that with creativity, and you’ll not only stay relevant, you’ll be indispensable.

About Oriana Brás

Oriana Brás is a marketing and leadership professional passionate about helping people and businesses grow. She thrives on creating empowering environments, building trust, and turning big ideas into tangible results. Oriana excels at inspiring teams, crafting clear strategies, and fostering meaningful growth in people, projects, and organizations. Outside of work, she enjoys climbing, wakeboarding, snowboarding, and volunteering, reflecting her commitment to challenge, community, and human connection.

The post Brand Consistency, Cultural Nuance, and Customer Trust: Oriana Brás on Global Marketing appeared first on iTechSeries.

Karina Andrade, Demand Generation Marketing Manager, Americas at Hitachi Vantara, shares her journey from sales to leading multi-channel marketing across LATAM and global markets. She discusses turning intent into pipeline, building scalable data-led campaigns, aligning marketing and sales, adapting messaging for local relevance while maintaining global brand consistency, and driving measurable revenue through orchestrated, multi-touch strategies.

Welcome to the interview series, Karina. Could you tell us about yourself and your marketing journey?

Thanks for having me. Here’s a quick summary of my marketing journey: I’m a B2B demand-generation marketer with a foundation in sales. I began as an SDR and then an AE, which taught me how to engage decision-makers and drive measurable revenue outcomes, skills that still anchor my programs today.

I then moved into marketing at a DSP focused on e-commerce performance, where I built a strong digital acquisition foundation. My first dedicated B2B marketing role was with a U.S. event-tech platform, where I helped launch the Brazil market and built the demand engine from the ground up. That’s when I fell in love with creating scalable, data-led, multi-channel programs that drive business growth.

Over the past decade, I’ve applied that playbook across SaaS companies in industries ranging from customer experience and decision intelligence to construction tech and ITSM, often leading LATAM expansion. I enjoy stepping into different industries because each one is like entering a new universe to master.

Most recently, I’ve moved into the data-infrastructure space, where I’m excited to keep turning intent into pipeline, expansion, and long-term customer value.

Can you share your approach to planning and executing multi-channel, multi-touch campaigns that deliver measurable revenue outcomes?

For me, it always starts with the audience. I take the time to understand who they are, how they buy, and what pain points motivate action. From there, I design a journey that doesn’t just push messages but creates a sequence of meaningful interactions across channels.

The backbone is orchestration: email nurtures, targeted paid social, content syndication, webinars, direct mail, and ABM. Each touchpoint has a role to play, and consistency in voice and message ties it all together. I like to think of it less as “channels” and more as an ecosystem where every engagement reinforces the next.

Equally important is alignment. I collaborate closely with sales early on, ensuring we agree on audience segments, messaging priorities, and the definition of success. That way, when leads enter the funnel, sales have the context and confidence to continue the conversation seamlessly.

Finally, I built measurement in from the start. I define KPIs at each stage—from engagement metrics like CTR and event attendance to deeper funnel indicators like MQL-SQL conversion and influenced pipeline. I rely on dashboards to monitor performance in real time and pivot quickly if a tactic isn’t resonating.

At its best, a multi-channel, multi-touch campaign isn’t just about hitting leads with volume; it’s about crafting a customer experience that feels intentional, relevant, and ultimately drives revenue outcomes.

How do you ensure marketing and sales teams are aligned when rolling out integrated campaigns across different markets?

Alignment starts with shared ownership. Before any campaign launches, I sit down with sales leadership to agree on who we’re targeting, what messaging will resonate, and what success looks like in that market. That upfront collaboration ensures we’re not just generating leads but creating opportunities that sales is ready to pursue.

From there, communication is constant. I keep sales updated on campaign progress, share content they can use in conversations, and make sure they have visibility into what their prospects are seeing. In turn, I rely on their feedback from the field to refine messaging and tactics.

Finally, I use data as a common language. Dashboards showing pipeline impact, conversion rates, and influenced revenue help both teams stay focused on outcomes. At its best, marketing and sales alignment isn’t just coordination; it’s a partnership, and that’s what drives consistent results across regions.

How do you ensure the quality of leads while scaling inbound and outbound campaigns in new territories?

Quality starts with precision. I work with sales to define the ICP and prioritize accounts or personas before a campaign ever launches. For inbound, that means tailoring content and SEO to attract the right buyers; for outbound, it means using intent data, firmographics, and clear scoring models to guide prospecting.

As campaigns scale, I layer in automation, lead scoring, routing, and nurture tracks, but keep a feedback loop with sales to validate lead quality on the ground. This way, even in new markets, we’re not just filling the funnel, we’re building a pipeline of prospects that are ready to convert.

“For me, it always starts with the audience. I design journeys that don’t just push messages but create meaningful interactions across channels.”

Can you tell us about your most memorable marketing campaign experience?

One of my most memorable experiences was leading the first multi-channel demand campaign for a U.S. SaaS company expanding into Latin America. The challenge was twofold: build brand awareness in a new market and deliver a pipeline quickly to support the local sales team.

I designed an integrated campaign that combined localized content, email nurtures, paid social, display, webinars, and content syndication. Just as important, I worked closely with sales to train them on the new messaging and ensure they were equipped to follow up effectively.

The result was a true “market entry playbook”. We not only hit pipeline targets ahead of schedule but also created a repeatable framework that the company later scaled to other regions. For me, it was memorable because it combined strategy, execution, and cross-functional alignment, and it proved the power of orchestrated, multi-touch marketing to open entirely new markets.

How do you adapt your messaging while maintaining global brand consistency when launching campaigns in new regions like LATAM?

It’s about balancing global consistency with local relevance. I start by anchoring campaigns in the company’s core value proposition and brand guidelines, which ensures the message feels cohesive no matter where it’s seen. Then, I adapt the narrative to the cultural, linguistic, and business realities of the region.

In LATAM, for example, that might mean shifting tone from highly technical to more relationship-driven, localizing not just language but examples and customer stories, and aligning campaigns with region-specific pain points like compliance or payments. I also partner closely with local sales teams to validate messaging before launch.

This way, the brand identity stays intact, but the campaigns feel authentic and resonate deeply in the market, which is ultimately what drives adoption and pipeline.

Which metrics do you monitor most closely to measure campaign success, and how do you tie them back to revenue?

I look at metrics in layers. At the top of the funnel, I track engagement metrics like CTR, content downloads, and event registrations to see if we’re capturing the right audience. In the middle, I focus on conversion points, MQL to SQL rates, meeting set rates, and velocity through the funnel. And at the bottom, I tie everything back to the influenced pipeline, closed-won deals, and ROI.

What makes the difference is connecting those layers. For example, if a campaign drives high engagement but low conversion, I know it’s a targeting or messaging issue. If conversion is strong but pipeline impact is weak, it may be a sales enablement gap. By monitoring across the funnel and partnering with sales, I can ensure campaigns aren’t just generating activity-they’re driving measurable revenue.

What advice would you give aspiring marketers on building a successful career path?

Stay curious and be willing to experiment. Marketing evolves quickly, and the best careers are built by people who lean into change rather than resist it. Build a strong foundation in data and measurement, because no matter the channel, you’ll need to prove impact. At the same time, develop your storytelling skills; great marketers can translate complex ideas into narratives that inspire action.

Don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone. Some of my biggest career growth came from raising my hand for projects in new markets or industries, even when I didn’t have all the answers upfront. And finally, invest in relationships with mentors, peers, and especially sales. Marketing is never done in a vacuum, and those connections often open the doors to your next big opportunity.

About Karina Andrade

Karina Andrade is a B2B demand-generation marketer with a foundation in sales, bringing technology brands to life through integrated, multi-channel campaigns. She began her career as an SDR and AE, later building scalable demand engines across SaaS, customer experience, and data-infrastructure companies. Karina has led LATAM expansions, AI product launches, and multi-touch marketing programs that drive engagement, pipeline, and measurable revenue outcomes for both technical and business audiences.

The post Marketing Strategy, Alignment, and Expansion: Karina Andrade on Driving Measurable Results appeared first on iTechSeries.

Ranjana Pillai, Country Marketing Manager for India and Singapore at Indeed, reflects on her 13-year journey from researcher to go-to-market leader. In this conversation, she shares insights on embedding sustainability into marketing, balancing global consistency with local relevance, blending AI with human creativity, driving pipeline growth, and shaping the future of B2B marketing.

Welcome to the interview series, Ranjana. Could you tell us about yourself and your journey as a go-to-market leader?

Thank you for including me in this series. A little bit about myself: I am a marketer with over 13 years of experience. However, my educational background was quite different. I started my career in life sciences as a researcher. After two years of working in the lab, I was looking for a change and got the opportunity to join a healthcare start-up as a content writer (given my background in science). From there, I grew into content marketing and product marketing, developing go-to-marketing strategies for the healthcare platform in India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Eventually, I moved on to a Marketing & Communications role in an industrial gases company, getting more rooted in B2B and content marketing strategies for South Asia. Currently, I am the Country Marketing Manager for India and Singapore at Indeed, a role I’ve held for over 5 years, working on demand generation, go-to-market messaging, and account-based marketing programs in the B2B space.

How do you integrate sustainability principles into your marketing strategies while ensuring measurable business impact?

Sustainability has now become an integral part of business operations, serving as a measure of performance by both internal and external stakeholders. The onus of driving strong performance that focuses on people and the planet, while also ensuring profits, requires new and innovative approaches. For me, sustainability in marketing goes beyond being a “nice-to-have” to building strategies that are authentic, actionable, and measurable.

I focus on three things:

1. Purpose-led storytelling—ensuring campaigns highlight not just what we do, but why it matters, tying back to broader ESG goals.
2. Responsible choices—from the partners we work with to the formats we use, I try to reduce waste and encourage smarter, more sustainable practices.
3. Measurable outcomes—whether it’s engagement, efficiency, or long-term brand equity, every initiative is tied to metrics that show clear business impact alongside positive social/environmental outcomes.

This way, sustainability isn’t a parallel track; rather, it’s embedded in how marketing drives growth and relevance.

What key factors are essential for marketing programs to drive stronger engagement and accelerate pipeline growth?

For me, the key to driving stronger engagement and accelerating the pipeline in B2B marketing is about being relevant, consistent, and value-led. This begins by putting the audience first, really understanding their needs, and shaping programs that address their challenges directly. This should be combined with insights-led storytelling, using data or research to create conversations that demonstrate tangible business impact. Finally, make sure your activations are fully integrated, so every touchpoint is part of a connected journey that nurtures relationships and builds trust. When these elements come together, marketing goes beyond generating leads—it creates meaningful engagement that translates into long-term partnerships and pipeline growth.

With greater alignment between sales, customer success, and RevOps teams, how do you see the role of marketing transforming in the future?

Marketing is moving from being a function that drives awareness to one that orchestrates the entire customer journey. The future role of marketing will be about creating seamless connections. This includes using insights to attract the right prospects, enabling sales with compelling narratives, and supporting customer success in driving long-term value. As these teams operate more cohesively, marketing’s impact will increasingly be measured not just by leads generated, but by its contribution to pipeline velocity, retention, and lifetime value. It’s less about executing campaigns in isolation and more about shaping the strategy that drives sustainable growth.

“Marketing is moving from being a function that drives awareness to one that orchestrates the entire customer journey.”

Having led marketing for multiple regions, how do you adapt strategies for diverse markets while keeping the brand voice consistent?

Marketing across diverse regions requires finding the balance between global consistency and local relevance. The way I see it, the brand voice acts as the unifying thread. It defines who we are, what we stand for, and the value we bring as a brand. However, how that voice shows up must adapt to the local context: audience expectations, cultural nuances, local products, and market maturity. The key is building strategies that are insight-driven and flexible, those that are anchored in a clear global narrative but activated through campaigns and storytelling that resonate locally. In this way, you can create marketing that feels both consistent and authentic while still driving impact in each unique market.

How do you craft product messaging that resonates with enterprise buyers and end-users, and how does customer feedback shape that process?

Crafting product messaging for enterprise and SME buyers is about clearly articulating business value in a way that feels relevant to their priorities. Enterprise leaders often look for scale, efficiency, and ROI, while SMEs want solutions that are agile, practical, and growth-oriented. Building go-to-market messaging that resonates involves closely working with product marketing to shape value propositions, with sales to bring in real-world insights from client conversations, and with product teams to align on the innovation story and roadmap. Customer feedback is the final layer—it grounds our messaging in lived experiences, ensuring it reflects what they actually need and expect. This collaboration allows us to create a consistent narrative of value that speaks to diverse business audiences.

Having worked extensively on SEO, SEM, and content strategy, how do you decide the right channel mix for maximum impact?

Deciding the right channel mix for maximum impact starts with clarity on the target audience, the outcomes you want to drive, and the resources available. SEO is evolving rapidly with Google’s AI-driven algorithms, which means success today is less about keywords alone and more about creating authoritative, trustworthy content that answers user intent. SEM continues to deliver speed and precision, while content provides the connective tissue that nurtures engagement across the funnel. Budget plays a critical role, as sometimes, the priority is to invest in channels with compounding returns like SEO and content, while in other cases, immediate demand generation through SEM takes precedence. By combining audience insights, performance data, and budget considerations, you can design a channel mix where each lever amplifies the other, ensuring both near-term results and long-term growth.

How can AI and human creativity work together to elevate storytelling in employer branding and marketing?

I see AI and human creativity as complementary forces in elevating storytelling for employer branding and marketing. AI helps uncover insights at scale by analyzing data, identifying patterns, and even generating first drafts or content variations. Human creativity brings empathy, context, and authenticity to the narrative, which are essential when telling stories about people and culture. When combined, AI becomes an enabler rather than a replacement, freeing time from repetitive tasks so marketers can focus on designing effective strategies and crafting stories that inspire, connect emotionally, and reflect a brand’s true values. The future of storytelling will belong to those who can blend data-driven intelligence with human imagination.

About Ranjana Pillai

Ranjana is a seasoned B2B marketer with over 13 years of experience across healthcare, industrial gases, and technology. Beginning her career as a life sciences researcher, she transitioned into marketing, developing expertise in content, product, and go-to-market strategies across India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Passionate about sustainability, she focuses on people, planet, and profits while driving demand generation, ABM, and customer-centric growth programs.

The post Scaling Global Go-to-Market Strategies with Local Relevance: A Conversation with Ranjana Pillai appeared first on iTechSeries.

Julia Kertesz, Senior Marketing Manager at Acronis, shares her journey from spearheading marketing for a family business to crafting high-impact campaigns for international corporations. In this conversation, she dives into aligning marketing and sales, balancing global brand consistency with local relevance, and the transformative power of AI in modern B2B marketing.

Welcome to the interview series, Julia. Could you tell us about your journey to becoming a marketing leader?

Hi, thank you for having me here!

My journey to becoming a marketing professional has been long and full of learning.

I started working early, as I was involved in a family business from high school through university. Being part of a family-run company, I naturally took on responsibility, supporting operations, helping with management, and eventually leading marketing. I also had the chance to apply my university learning in real time. For example, I wrote an analytical report aligned with quality standards (similar to ISO 9001), combining academic and practical experience. As a result, the company received a state award for management quality. That early exposure taught me to take initiative, act on knowledge while it’s fresh, and approach tasks with purpose.

Later, I moved into sales and marketing roles across SMBs. I worked hard, often beyond my job description, driven by a hunger for knowledge and well-rounded experience. Before entering the corporate world, I was the sales and marketing director at a hotel chain. All the companies I worked for had under 50 employees, so there were no strict department lines, we did everything: strategy, lead gen, closing deals, and partner enablement.

That environment gave me a strong, hands-on understanding of how closely marketing and sales must work together to drive results.

When I moved into a large international corporation, I brought that mindset with me. Today, I lead marketing campaigns for diverse audiences, with a core focus on operational technology (OT) industries.

I’ve always believed real growth comes through learning. That’s why, in addition to my master’s in business administration, I completed a cyber-resilience course to better understand the challenges professionals face from compliance and incident response to ransomware and business continuity. In a few weeks, I’ll be taking part in penetration testing training focused on OT environments, and I’m genuinely excited to keep learning.

What’s your approach to aligning marketing and sales teams when launching integrated campaigns across multiple markets?

For me, alignment between marketing and sales isn’t just important; it’s foundational.

I typically work on campaigns across regions like NAM, Japan, DACH, and others, where customer expectations, regulations, and buying behaviours vary significantly. So our alignment starts early in the planning stage: we discuss campaign goals, the target audience, common objections they encounter, and what types of assets or tactics perform best locally. These conversations help shape campaigns that are truly relevant and ready for local execution.

Once the campaign is live, I stay close to performance metrics and feedback loops. I regularly check in with sales teams to hear what’s working, what’s not, and where they might need additional support, like follow-up materials, localized content, or refreshed messaging.

Over time, I’ve tested different collaboration models, but the most impactful results always come when global and regional marketing and sales teams work closely together from day one. That synergy of knowledge is what drives stronger engagement and higher conversion.

Having run marketing programs across different regions (US, UKI, DACH, and APAC), how do you strike the right balance between global brand consistency and local market relevance?

That’s a great question!When running marketing programs across multiple regions, I always start with the foundation of global brand consistency: the core messaging, visual identity, tone of voice, and values should remain strong and recognizable across all markets. This consistency builds long-term trust and reinforces brand equity, no matter where the customer is.

At the same time, each region brings its own unique context: different levels of digital maturity, industry challenges, cultural nuances, content preferences, and regulatory requirements. That’s why my approach is to create a solid global campaign framework and then work closely with local teams to adapt it for their specific market realities.

That might include adjusting examples to reflect local industries, selecting key visuals that resonate regionally, highlighting case studies from familiar and respected customers, or translating content not just linguistically but culturally (with valuable input from local teams). It’s also important to tailor messaging, for example, to reflect relevant compliance frameworks like NIS2 in Europe, HIPAA in the US, or 2G3M in Japan. To sum up, I see it as a balance between structure and flexibility: setting a clear strategic direction globally while working closely with local teams to adapt campaigns in a way that connects with their audience.

“Marketing’s role isn’t just to generate leads but to create a pipeline of future customers who are already familiar with value when the time to buy comes.”

Can you share one of your most impactful or memorable marketing campaign experiences?

Absolutely! There are many ways to define impact, from engagement to pipeline influence, but one of the most memorable campaigns for me began back in December 2022.

Like many marketers, I regularly collaborate with subject matter experts. One day, my colleague James floated an idea about the rising relevance of ChatGPT and the implications of evolving cyber threats. I was inspired: it was timely and relevant, and I knew it would resonate with our audience. And it absolutely did.

We quickly mobilized a multi-touch campaign with a top-of-the-funnel webinar series at its core to drive awareness. The response exceeded expectations: over 3,700 registrations for that event.

To nurture prospects further along the journey, I proposed a middle-of-the-funnel tactic as part of this campaign: an incident response planning workshop, supported by actionable templates and checklists. This initiative had a direct sales impact, attracting buyers who were already actively exploring solutions. As a result, it led to some of the fastest deal conversions of my marketing career.

We ran this campaign for about a year, and it proved highly effective because we focused on relevant topics and moved quickly when new opportunities emerged while building a solid funnel-aligned plan that reflected the interests and needs of our audience.

What are some of the major challenges and opportunities for marketing in the cybersecurity space?

Today, one of the biggest challenges in tech, including cybersecurity, is the complexity of the solutions we market. In many cases, you’re not just selling to one person. You’re engaging with a committee of decision-makers from various departments, each with different priorities, levels of technical understanding, and expectations. That makes it critical to create messaging that resonates with different audiences, from engineers to executives, without losing clarity or consistency.

Another challenge is how buyers behave today. Most of the journey happens long before a prospect ever talks to sales. Buyers do their own research, shortlist vendors, read peer reviews, attend events, and consume content on their own terms. So, as marketers, we need to show up early and not with a pitch, but with value. That’s where I see a real shift toward brand-to-demand marketing. I often speak about this in my LinkedIn blog: modern B2B marketing isn’t just about generating leads; it’s about building credibility and trust long before someone fills out a form.

At the same time, there’s a huge opportunity in this space. Tech is fast-moving, rich in innovation, and constantly evolving. That means there’s always something new to talk about: a new use case, a new regulation, or a shift in the market. It gives marketers the chance to be true enablers: simplifying complex topics, connecting people with the right solutions, and helping businesses move forward with confidence.

How do you approach managing the marketing budget across different channels, and which metrics do you monitor most closely to ensure a strong ROI?

In B2B tech marketing, especially when working across different regions, managing spending is always a balance between short-term performance and long-term brand building.

When allocating budget across channels, I start by mapping marketing activities to the full customer journey and aligning those activities with regional goals and market maturity. I also set clear benchmarks and analyze channel performance at regular intervals, because in B2B, especially with longer sales cycles, what doesn’t perform in one quarter may prove its value later, particularly for larger or more complex accounts.

In terms of metrics, I closely track MQL to SQL conversion, deal size influence, and conversion to closed-won opportunities. These KPIs help measure not just volume but also the quality and sales readiness of leads, which reflects how well campaigns, messaging, and targeting are resonating with the right audience.

In markets with long buying cycles (often 6–12 months or more), it’s also important to use multi-touch attribution to understand the impact of marketing over time. I also combine this data with qualitative feedback from sales, especially when we’re focused on high-value accounts, because it gives context that numbers alone can’t provide.

Finally, I believe in consistent investment in brand-building, even when ROI isn’t immediate. Educating the market, building credibility, and delivering value early in the journey all help shorten sales cycles and increase win rates in the long run. Marketing’s role isn’t just to generate leads but to create a pipeline of future customers who are already familiar with value when the time to buy comes.

How has AI impacted the planning and execution of your marketing programs?

One of the biggest shifts I’ve experienced is in how AI accelerates everyday tasks like copywriting, proofreading, brainstorming, and analysis. What used to take hours of ideation and refinement can now be done in minutes. It doesn’t just save time, it improves quality too, because reviewing 3–4 solid options and selecting the best one is more effective than starting from scratch.

Of course, it still requires guiding the output with the right prompt, but once you learn how to collaborate with AI properly, the time savings are real. Personally, I estimate it saves me around 5 hours per week. That’s nearly a full workday every month: time I can now spend on deeper analytics, strategic planning, better alignment with regions, or refining campaign frameworks.

To sum up, AI allowed me as a marketer to shift focus from repetitive execution to higher-value work. It helps me to move faster, stay agile, and be more intentional with how I use my time. And that’s a huge competitive advantage in today’s fast-moving tech landscape.

About Julia Kertesz

Julia Kertesz is a marketing professional with over 15 years of experience in both B2B and B2C. She began her journey in a family-run business, gaining early hands-on experience across operations and marketing. Her career spans sales and marketing leadership roles in SMBs and large corporations, with a strong focus on operational technology industries. Julia is passionate about combining tech, psychology, and analytics to create data-driven campaigns that drive real business impact.

The post Campaigns, Culture & Cybersecurity: Julia Kertesz’s Blueprint for Impactful Global Marketing appeared first on iTechSeries.