APAC's B2B Growth Podcast

Hosted by xGrowth

Business Marketing Entrepreneurship ManagementInterviews guests

Website RSS feed

Episodes

298

Latest episode

Oct 2026

Language

About the show

APAC's B2B Growth Podcast (formerly Growth Colony) is a bi-weekly interview show unpacking trends, busting myths and delivering insights B2B marketing and sales leaders across Asia-Pacific can put to work today. Each episode, host Shahin Hoda sits down with a marketing leader, sales leader, founder or operator who has a real point of view, not a generic take. Guests bring specific stories from inside their own companies: what worked, what failed and what they'd do differently. We cover what's actually driving B2B growth in the region: account-based marketing built for APAC rather than adapted from a US or UK playbook, sales and marketing alignment, and founder and operator commentary from people doing the work, not just talking about it. If you're a B2B marketing or sales leader in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore or anywhere else in Asia-Pacific trying to build pipeline from strategic accounts, this show is for you. Hosted by Shahin Hoda, founder of xGrowth. xGrowth is an account-based marketing and go-to-market agency helping global B2B technology companies improve customer acquisition, build qualified pipeline and win strategic accounts across APAC. The agency works with regional sales and marketing teams to identify priority accounts, develop coordinated campaigns and turn commercial opportunities into measurable growth. With specialist regional expertise and hands-on execution support, xGrowth gives lean marketing teams the strategy and capacity needed to enter new markets, reach enterprise buyers and grow valuable customer relationships. New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe so you don't miss one, and sign up for the xG Weekly newsletter for more insights on B2B growth across APAC.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

October 22, 2026Episode 27323 min

Salespeople Are the New Engineers with David Fastuca

David Fastuca, Co-Founder and CEO of Ricavi AI, joins the show to unpack how enterprise sales has flipped in five years, from headcount-heavy SDR teams to a leaner bench of account executives running their own go-to-market motions. He explains why sales-led growth is making a comeback even at product-led darlings like Cursor, why salespeople have become "the new engineers," and what separates fast-ramping sales teams from the rest. Expect real numbers on rep pay and ARR growth, a practical prospecting stack, and healthy scepticism about the AI hype. Guest Introduction David Fastuca is a serial entrepreneur with two SaaS exits worth $75 million combined. He co-founded Locomote, later helping buy the travel tech company back from Travelport, and is now Co-Founder and CEO of Ricavi AI (formerly Coach Pilot), an AI sales coaching platform. Key Topics How the B2B sales org has changed since 2021: leaner headcount, with SDRs converging into account executives who now hunt their own deals using go-to-market tooling Why uncapped commissions are producing account executives earning up to a million dollars a year, and why David calls this "the best time to be a seller" The Cursor case study: product-led growth alone stalled past $200M ARR, and adding a sales team helped push it past $4 billion in annualised revenue, with roughly $2.6 billion from enterprise deals sales closed Rising paid acquisition costs, and why LinkedIn ads are mostly a brand play, as drivers of the return to sales-led growth What separates fast-ramping companies from those stuck at six to eight months: a documented sales process and a small tool stack David's prospecting stack: enrichment tools, multi-touch outreach, and signal-based list building triggered by funding rounds, hiring surges, or industry news How David mines historical CRM data to find his most profitable customer profile, from his experience returning to lead Locomote Why David is sceptical of "AI will replace your sales team" claims, and which AI tools have earned a spot in his stack Resources & Links People Ben Horowitz - Co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things Companies & Tools Ricavi AI - David's AI sales coaching platform (formerly Coach Pilot), built to cut manual CRM entry Locomote - Travel tech company David co-founded and later helped buy back from Travelport Cursor - AI coding tool David cites as the strongest case for sales-led growth after adding a sales team Firmable - Australian B2B enrichment tool David recommends for prospecting ZoomInfo - International B2B enrichment platform Lusha - International B2B enrichment platform lemlist - Multi-touch outreach automation tool Botdog - LinkedIn automation tool Framer - AI website builder David used to update Ricavi's site after its rebrand Manus - AI tool David uses for document creation and internal thinking Todoist - The to-do list tool David keeps returning to Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : David Fastuca Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

October 8, 2026Episode 27248 min

How CMOs Win Back the Boardroom in the Age of AI with Andy Lark

Andy Lark has sat on 15-20 boards across ASX, Fortune 100 and startup companies, and he's blunt: most boards barely think about marketing. He explains why, what actually earns a marketer a seat at the table, and why commercial relevance beats campaign metrics. The chat then turns to AI: how marketing lost three of the four Ps, why most AI content is making brands worse, and the exact agent workflow Andy runs daily to track sales calls, competitors and market signals. Guest Introduction Andy Lark is a globally awarded CMO, entrepreneur and board director who helped build Xero into a global software company, reimagined Commonwealth Bank's brand and digital experiences, and helped build Dell's eCommerce site. He is Chair and Founder of Group Lark, leads The Accelerants , advises Nomni, co-authored the best-seller Augmented, and coaches thousands of leaders yearly on AI-first growth. Key Topics Why boards rarely care about marketing, and the two triggers that put it on the agenda: major change, or something going wrong. How marketing lost three of the four Ps (product, price, place), keeping only promotion. What "commercial relevance" really means: being the voice of the customer and of the market. A telco board wanting to cut brand spend for "not driving growth," and why that's the wrong call. How businesses train buyers to wait for discounts, and why ABM and brand building fix it. Andy's AI agents that score every sales call each morning and scan the market for signals. Why AI content is flooding LinkedIn with noise, and how to use AI without losing brand voice. A five-level AI maturity model for marketing teams, plus Andy's 30-day plan for heads of marketing. Resources & Links People Joan Withers - former Mercury Energy chair, cited for prioritising brand at board level Companies & Tools Liven - Andy's CCO role The Accelerants - Andy's marketing consultancy for CMOs Dell - past CMO role Commonwealth Bank - past CMO role Xero - past CMO role Mercury Energy - from the Joan Withers story Mondelez's AI briefing tool - AI-automated creative briefs Clay's AI writing policy - content rule example Claude - primary AI tool ChatGPT - secondary AI tool Codex - coding tasks Gemini - image generation Perplexity - quick research Grok - quick research Lovable - app prototyping Replit - app prototyping ClickUp Brain - marketing calendars Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : Andy Lark Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is presented by xGrowth

September 24, 2026Episode 27139 min

What B2B Marketers Should Measure Instead of MQLs with James Toepfer

James Toepfer, former Head of Campaign Strategy and Demand Marketing for Digital Media APAC at Adobe, joins the show to explain why his team there ditched the Marketing Qualified Lead for the Marketing Qualified Account. He unpacks the disconnect that forced the change, an MQL dashboard glowing green while sales sat in the red, and how an account view reshaped BDR targets and conversion. Expect a practical breakdown of MQA and advice for lean teams without an insights function. Guest Introduction James Toepfer is a senior B2B marketing leader with 20+ years driving marketing strategy, go-to-market architecture, and revenue growth across enterprise SaaS in ANZ and APAC, at organisations including Adobe, Google, Intuit, PayPal, and Optus. Key Topics The "green dashboard, red sales" disconnect: why MQL volume and database coverage stopped reflecting sales performance What MQA measures: engagement across a buying group of 7-10 ICPs per account, including "dark funnel" activity, not a single last-touch metric The multi-quarter transition at Adobe, running MQL and MQA in parallel, led by a global insights team with heavy BDR enablement The Account Engagement Hub: a self-serve tool for BDRs to prioritise accounts, see engaged contacts, and build outbound plans How BDR incentives changed under MQA: unchanged pipeline targets, but higher-quality conversations and disposition rates Adjusting the model under quarter-end pressure by narrowing to the most-engaged accounts, not adding more leads Advice for smaller teams: group leads by account manually and work backwards from the revenue number Why conversion improved once the denominator shifted to prioritised accounts, alongside sharper, problem-led content Resources & Links People Kerry Cunningham - Former Forrester analyst, now at 6sense, whose talk first shaped James's account-based thinking Jon Miller - Marketo co-founder, early advocate for account-based measurement Jon Stona - Global CMO of Airwallex, cited as an example of bold B2B brand marketing Nishi Seth - Google Cloud Marketing Lead APAC, cited for her take on continuous optimisation Lucinda Barlow - Senior Director, International Marketing at Uber and James's former Google leader, cited for brand built on a customer "jolt" Mark Jones - Host of The CMO Show, which Adobe sponsors Dave Gerhardt - Founder of Exit Five, followed for ABM content Shadé Zahrai - Self-leadership researcher whose "I could" vs "I should" framing James cites as a takeaway Companies & Tools Adobe - Where James led the MQL-to-MQA transition 6sense - Intent platform Kerry Cunningham now works with Marketo - Automation platform, part of Adobe, co-founded by Jon Miller The CMO Show - Marketing podcast hosted by Mark Jones, sponsored by Adobe Exit Five - B2B marketing community founded by Dave Gerhardt Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : James Toepfer Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

September 10, 2026Episode 27040 min

How to Run a 7-Person Marketing Team With Just One Person with Jeff Sauer

Jeff Sauer has spent twenty years teaching marketers how to measure what matters. In this episode, he explains how AI has rewritten his marketing playbook, letting a lean team (often just himself and a stack of AI tools) produce work that used to take a copywriter, web designer, project manager, and paid ads specialist. If you run a small marketing team and want a practical look at what AI can take off your plate today, this conversation is packed with real workflows, real numbers, and honest warnings about what still needs a human eye. Guest Introduction Jeff Sauer is the founder of MeasureU , a measurement training platform for agency owners and consultants, and previously ran an Inc 5000 agency for a decade before selling it. He has trained more than 50,000 marketers across over 100 countries and built a YouTube channel with more than 55,000 subscribers. Key Topics How AI has shifted marketing staffing from "I need these people" to "what staff do I actually need" Jeff's AI stack: Claude Code as his daily driver, plus ChatGPT, Gemini, Veo 3, Seedance, and Copy Coders for specialist tasks Building serversideblueprint.com end to end with AI, which sold $15,000 worth of workshops An automated LinkedIn workflow that drafts, schedules, and replies to comments, generating over 1,000 B2B leads this year Why long-form YouTube content anchors his content engine, feeding blog posts, newsletters, and social clips Building 40+ lead generating landing pages in minutes each with Claude Code, no WordPress plugins needed His anti-AI tuning rules and six-step skill framework for catching AI writing patterns before they go live Why email remains the highest ROI channel, and how voice dictation feeds his AI-assisted writing process Resources & Links Companies & Tools MeasureU , Jeff's training company MeasureU AI Marketing Guide , free guide to this episode's four workflows, plus an AI vs human task grid Claude and Claude Code , Jeff's daily AI driver ChatGPT and Codex, for image generation and code checks Google Gemini , for image generation Google Veo 3 and ByteDance Seedance , for AI video generation Copy Coders , Genesis bots for email, script, and landing page copy Publer , Taplio , Apify , and n8n , earlier tools for LinkedIn scheduling, research, and automation, now folded into Claude MacWhisper , voice dictation for email drafts Z.ai GLM models, used to critique and bug check AI code Authority Hacker , source of Jeff's skill framework Lovable , an early 2025 vibe coding tool WordPress , Gravity Forms , and Go High Level , the old site and lead capture tools Jeff no longer needs Contact & Credits: Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : Jeff Sauer Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

August 27, 2026Episode 26947 min

From Copywriter to AI-Native Marketer: The Full Playbook with Shaun Thresher

Shaun Thresher built his own AI powered second brain, using Claude Code, to run his marketing and copywriting work end to end. In this episode, Shaun walks through how he moved from bouncing between two separate AI chat windows to a single centralised system that reads his voice, his clients' details and his workflows before it writes a word. He explains why one well briefed agent with multiple skills beats a pile of specialised agents, how he trains AI to score new content against his best performing posts so it stops sounding repetitive, and how he uses AI to dig up prospect lists most competitors never find, including one built from a public FDA compliance database. Whether you're just starting to explore Claude or ChatGPT, or you're ready to build a proper system around your marketing operation, this conversation is full of practical, hard won lessons. Guest Introduction Shaun Thresher is a copywriter turned AI systems builder who spent eight years at Agora Financial, a top US direct-response shop, before becoming CMO of online assets at a publicly-traded company and later CEO of one of its e-commerce brands. He now runs BioRevGrowth, building AI powered "second brain" systems for marketers, and since January 2025 has led marketing and technical operations for a US-based long COVID doctor. Key Topics Moving from copying and pasting between ChatGPT and Claude to a single centralised second brain, built and stored in GitHub The difference between agents, skills and workflows, and why Shaun now favours one well briefed content agent with multiple skills over many separate agents How Shaun sources prospect lists from public databases, including an FDA compliance database, instead of relying solely on paid tools like Clay Building a "digital fingerprint" from a client's best performing content so AI generated posts match their voice and tone Scoring new content against a curated pool of top performing past content to avoid repetitive, generic AI output ("AI slop") Why Claude Code offers more flexibility than a standard chat interface, including API and MCP connections into tools like Google Ads and Meta Ads Common pitfalls: memory systems that quietly stop working, and installing unfamiliar agents without understanding how they operate Advice for marketers starting out: pick one problem to solve, invest in a higher tier AI plan, and find a community for support Resources & Links People Mentioned Ethan Mollick - Wharton professor and AI researcher Nate B. Jones - AI strategist and newsletter writer David Arnoux - runs the GenAI Circle community Shaun is part of Companies & Tools BioRevGrowth - Shaun's growth and revenue consultancy for biotech and nutraceutical companies Clay - data enrichment and outreach platform GitHub Vercel ChatGPT and OpenAI Codex Claude Code / Claude Desktop Google Ads , Meta Ads Firecrawl Zernio -social media scheduling and publishing API Remotion - animation library used for content generation Second Brain 2.0 - the pre-built go-to-market agent system Shaun purchased and plugged into his own setup. Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : Shaun Thresher Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

August 13, 2026Episode 26840 min

What is Gartner’s Prediction on AI and Job Market with Neal Woolrich

AI isn't just changing individual jobs, it's changing the shape of the org chart itself. In this episode, Neal Woolrich, Director in Gartner's Human Resources Advisory practice, joins Shahin to unpack whether the traditional "pyramid" structure is giving way to a "diamond" with fewer entry-level roles, and what that means for the next generation of managers. Neal cuts through the noise around AI-driven layoffs (much of it, he argues, is "AI washing") and shares Gartner's projection that AI becomes a net job creator by 2030. He also walks through real governance models from Lloyd's Bank, ServiceNow and Red Hat, and tackles the thorny question of what happens when AI agents start appearing on the org chart alongside humans. Guest Introduction Neal Woolrich is a Director in Gartner's Human Resources Advisory practice, based in Melbourne, where he advises organisations on culture, employee experience and organisational design. He spent 13 years as a broadcast journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) before moving into HR consulting. Key Topics Why the traditional "pyramid" org structure (many entry-level roles, fewer managers, fewer executives) is being challenged by a "diamond" shape with a shrinking entry point The shift from specialist workers to AI-complemented generalists, and what it means for how organisations build skills over time Why Neal believes many AI-attributed layoffs are actually "AI washing," with financial or market pressures the real driver Gartner's projection that AI becomes a net job creator by 2030, and what the next four years of labour market disruption might look like New roles emerging directly from AI adoption, including AI governance and AI ethics functions Three real-world governance models: Lloyd's Bank's "control tower" approach, ServiceNow's AI council with supporting pods, and Red Hat's three-tier framework based on degree of AI impact The emerging practice of placing AI agents on the org chart, and the open questions around ownership and accountability when things go wrong Differences in AI adoption pace between the US, UK and Australia, and why Neal doesn't think Australia's "behind" position is cause for panic How organisations can communicate AI rollouts to reduce the roughly 40% of the workforce that reacts negatively to major change Resources & Links People Mentioned Rick Beato – YouTube music educator and producer Neal cited as someone whose commentary on the shift from big studios to home recording has shaped his thinking about the AI "bubble" debate Companies & Tools Gartner – Research and advisory firm where Neal works; source of the org-structure and net-job-creator research discussed throughout Ramp – Fintech company referenced for its hiring trends report, which found companies adopting AI kept similar junior hiring rates to before AI Lloyd's Bank – UK bank cited for its "control tower" approach to AI governance ServiceNow – HR technology company cited for its two-tier AI council and pod governance model Red Hat – Open-source company cited for its three-tier framework grouping roles by degree of AI impact IBM – Red Hat's parent company, referenced regarding a recent stock drop tied to AI strategy commentary Moderna – Referenced for merging its IT and HR functions in recognition that AI is a human experience as much as a technology one Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : Neal Woolrich Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is presented by xGrowth

July 30, 2026Episode 26735 min

Building a Go to Market Hub That Connects Sales, Marketing and Customer Success with Ronan Bray

What happens when a marketing leader goes all in on AI, not just for himself, but for his entire team? Ronan Bray, Head of Marketing & Growth at Cloud Assess, joins the podcast to unpack exactly that. From a two week Christmas break spent teaching himself to build apps, to rolling out a fully connected go to market platform that pulls live data from HubSpot, Google Search Console, and Notion, Ronan shares the real story of AI adoption inside a B2B marketing team, mess, momentum, and all. This episode is a practical playbook for any marketing leader wondering how to move a team from AI curiosity to AI capability. Ronan gets specific about what worked (starting small with personal projects), what didn't (announcing a team wide AI mandate with almost no context), and where he still won't let AI near the steering wheel, like paid ad spend and image or video creation. Guest Introduction Ronan Bray is Head of Marketing & Growth at Cloud Assess, where he leads a global marketing team driving pipeline with over 85 percent of ARR from inbound. Over 16 years he has scaled B2B marketing for ASX listed companies and his own startups (three reaching acquisition or buyout), building on experience at HubSpot and Drift. Key Topics Ronan's personal path into AI, from everyday ChatGPT use to picking Claude as the team's core tool to avoid spreading focus too thin How a two week Christmas break and a personal "vibe coding" project (a lawn care scheduler built in Lovable) became the spark for wider team adoption The simple three question framework Ronan uses with his team: where's your time going, what's repetitive, and what's the ideal end state Building a go to market hub in Lovable that connects HubSpot, Google Search Console and Firecrawl to surface content gaps and sales insights automatically Why Ronan's team keeps a human in the loop on all content, even though AI can draft it, because audiences and algorithms can both tell when something is fully AI generated The security guardrails Cloud Assess put in place around domain locking and vulnerability scanning when building internally with Lovable Why Ronan won't hand over paid ad spend decisions to AI, even with tools connected to Google Ads What's next for Ronan's team: using AI for image and video generation to communicate fast moving product releases to sales and customers Resources & Links Companies & Tools Cloud Assess : Ronan's company, an AI powered training and assessment platform, referenced throughout as the environment for his AI rollout Lovable : the AI app builder Ronan and his team use to build internal tools, including their go to market hub Claude : the AI assistant Ronan's team standardised on for everyday tasks and custom team projects HubSpot : the CRM feeding deal and pipeline data into the go to market hub Firecrawl : the web scraping tool connected to their platform to analyse blog and competitor content ChatGPT : the tool Ronan first used for personal AI adoption before switching to Claude Notion : used by Cloud Assess's product team to track features, later integrated into the go to market hub Higgsfield : an AI image and video tool Ronan tested via MCP, which he found fell short for a recent website rebuild Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : Ronan Bray Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

July 16, 2026Episode 26634 min

The Partner Marketing Playbook Nobody Talks About with Jordana Sunderland

Most B2B marketers treat partners like a sales channel. Jordana Sunderland says that's the core mistake. In this episode, Jordana, Director of Integrated Marketing for the Pacific Zone at Schneider Electric, joins Shahin to unpack what genuine partner marketing looks like and why so many companies get it fundamentally wrong. From her early career marketing pharmaceuticals to her current work navigating the energy transition, Jordana draws on cross-industry experience to reveal how insights, enablement, and real partnership beat price conversations every time. If your go-to-market relies on a channel or distribution network, this episode is essential listening. Guest Introduction Jordana Sunderland is Director of Integrated Marketing, Pacific Zone at Schneider Electric, a global leader in energy technology. With over two decades of B2B marketing experience across the pharmaceutical and energy sectors, Jordana has built a reputation for turning partner relationships into genuine growth engines through enablement, insight, and advisory-led sales. Key Topics Why leadership and sales teams default to price conversations with partners, and why that framing is detrimental to long-term growth How to win share of mind over share of shelf by understanding what partners are actually trying to achieve in their business The role of partner enablement, including loyalty programs, training, and data-driven insights, in driving preference for your product over competitors A real-world example from community pharmacy: how Jordana's team became indispensable to partners by providing expert analysis on government pricing changes that directly affected their revenue How to balance end-user demand generation against partner-led selling, and why Jordana recommends a 70/30 partner-to-end-user investment split as a starting point The attitudinal segmentation approach to partner acquisition: why firmographic size is a poor proxy for partner quality and how to identify partners who share your values Co-marketing reality check: why logo placement and random promotions deliver nothing, and what genuine co-marketing amplification looks like MDF fund management: how to maintain brand alignment when marketing development funds are in play, and why sales and marketing must be tightly connected Resources & Links Companies & Tools Schneider Electric -Jordana's current employer; a global energy technology company Viatris -the generics pharmaceuticals company (formerly Mylan) where Jordana held a marketing role prior to Schneider Electric Books & Resources The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson - recommended by Jordana as a foundational read that shaped her marketing approach Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : Jordana Sunderland Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell & Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder Podcast Co-ordinator: Jonah Igsie APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

July 2, 2026Episode 26535 min

How to fix your GTM playbook without starting a revolution with Andrei Zinkevich

The CMO role has never been harder. Trust from leadership sits at around 30%, average tenure has dropped to 16–18 months, and budgets keep getting cut while pressure mounts to "bolt on AI" without any strategy in place. But is this a people problem, or a playbook problem? Andrei Zinkevich, co-founder of Fullfunnel.io, argues it is firmly the latter. In this episode, he and host Shahin Hoda tear apart the demand waterfall model that has been quietly undermining B2B marketing functions for years, and map out a practical path to cross-functional go-to-market that actually drives revenue. Andrei also shares his change management playbook, his approach to building CFO buy-in, and why deploying AI into a broken process just accelerates the wrong outcomes. Guest Introduction Andrei Zinkevich is co-founder of Fullfunnel.io , a B2B marketing consultancy helping tech and service companies with high-value deals and long sales cycles build full-funnel, account-based go-to-market programs. He is co-author of the book Full-Funnel B2B Marketing alongside co-founder Vladimir Blagojevic, a systematic guide to fixing broken GTM playbooks and building an enterprise pipeline without organisational revolution. Key Topics Why CMO trust and tenure are falling: the broken demand waterfall model, not individual performance, is the root cause, and why MQLs are no longer moving the needle with leadership The case for cross-functional go-to-market: why siloed marketing, sales, and customer success KPIs make revenue growth structurally impossible for companies with long sales cycles Flipping the measurement funnel: using revenue and sales-qualified opportunities from strategic accounts as North Star metrics, then decomposing to account engagement thresholds rather than arbitrary scoring models Driving organisational change without triggering a revolution: the two-stage approach of problem buy-in first and solution buy-in second, including how to collect evidence, find internal change agents, and connect the dots to strategic initiatives The "CFO quiz" playbook: reviewing closed-won deals across all touch points to reframe the attribution conversation with leadership and shift toward revenue-responsible marketing metrics Making existing programs account-based as the entry point for change: showing marketing's impact on strategic accounts and pipeline without needing new technology or budget AI in B2B go-to-market: why AI accelerates whatever processes already exist (good or broken), the dangers of "doing more with less" without a strategy, and the POS framework (Pilot, Operationalisation, Scaling) for responsible implementation Resources & Links Vladimir Blagojevic -Co-founder, Fullfunnel.io and co-author of Full-Funnel B2B Marketing Full-Funnel B2B Marketing by Andrei Zinkevich and Vladimir Blagojevic — also available on Amazon Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : Andrei Zinkevich Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell and Dave Somido Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth

June 18, 2026Episode 26438 min

How to Fix the Marketing to Sales Handover Before Your Leads Go Cold with Nishi Seth

What happens to all those leads marketing works so hard to generate? More often than not, they go cold. According to Nishi Seth, Industry & Solutions Marketing Lead for Google Cloud APAC, this isn't a niche problem. It's one of the most persistent challenges across B2B, regardless of company size or sophistication. In this episode, Shahin sits down with Nishi to unpack the real reasons leads stall between marketing and sales, from qualification gaps to missing context, and what it actually takes to fix them. Nishi shares battle-tested lessons from scaling Google Cloud's marketing-to-sales motion across APAC, including how AI is transforming BDR productivity right now. Guest Introduction Nishi Seth is the Industry & Solutions Marketing Lead for Google Cloud APAC at Google, with over 20 years of experience across cloud technology, financial services, and travel. She has held senior marketing roles at American Express and British Airways, and is a recognised B2B marketing leader across the Asia-Pacific region. Key Topics Why leads go cold: the two root causes (qualification gaps and context gaps) and why even the most sophisticated B2B organisations struggle with them The three pillars of an optimised marketing-to-sales handover: lead quality, context, and a continuous review and feedback loop Why BDRs are the critical bridge between marketing and sales, and how to assess whether your BDR function is actually working How MQL definitions should evolve over time: Google Cloud's journey from basic demographic scoring to 48+ real-time intent signals, including account-level qualification What providing context to BDRs really means: enablement calls, campaign-specific opening scripts, and cadences tailored to how each lead engaged The key metrics that reveal handover health: SAL acceptance rates, SAL-to-SQL conversion, number of outreach touches, and lead velocity How AI is changing BDR productivity: using automation for low-intent lead follow-up, real-time AI assistants during live sales calls, and AI-powered account research at scale Nishi's rapid-fire take: "strong opinions, loosely held," using AI to boost your own marketing productivity, and why simplifying complexity in B2B is what excites her most Resources & Links Google Cloud — Nishi's base for all real-world examples discussed, from MQL definition evolution to AI-powered BDR tooling Google Gemini — Nishi's go-to research tool in place of following influencers; she also used it to prepare for this episode Contact & Credits Host: Shahin Hoda Guest : Nishi Seth Produced by : Shahin Hoda and Alexander Hipwell Edited by: Alexander Hipwell Music by : Breakmaster Cylinder APAC's B2B Growth Podcast is Presented by xGrowth