Martech Avengers Assemble with Neha Dadbhawala, Head of Martech at SEEK

"Marketing engineers are the lovechild of marketers, product managers, and software engineers — they're the Avengers of your Martech stack." - Neha Dadbhawala

Join Jacqueline and Neha, Head of Martech at SEEK, to unpack how the role of the marketing engineer is reshaping the future of digital transformation.

Neha shares her insights on bridging strategy and execution, building operational readiness, and applying systems thinking to deliver scalable marketing outcomes. From the rise of AI to managing legacy tech, Neha reveals what it takes to drive meaningful innovation across marketing, technology, and customer experience.

Key Insights

• Discover the Rise of the Marketing Engineer
• Learn the 70-20-10 Rule for Operational Readiness
• Explore System-Level Thinking
• Bridge the Marketing–Tech Divide
• Navigate Legacy Systems with Agility
• Build the Future Martech Leader

Timestamps

00:30 — Rapid-Fire Intro: Neha's favorite Martech tool, the "build vs. buy" dilemma, and her least-favorite buzzword: "hyper-personalization."

3:30 — Defining the Marketing Engineer: The evolution from technologist to system architect and problem solver.

7:00 — Skills for the Future: Systems thinking, product mindset, and emotional intelligence as core leadership traits.

9:30 — Operational Readiness & the 70-20-10 Rule: How to plan for change and innovation simultaneously.

14:00 — Agility in Legacy Systems: Managing tech debt while maintaining scalability and speed.

18:30 — Breaking Silos: Why shared data definitions and transparent priorities unlock collaboration.

25:00 — The Future of Martech Careers: How marketing engineers can evolve into CMOs, Chief Growth Officers, and beyond.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Jacqueline Freedman

What is Making Sense of Martech?

Unfiltered takes on the biggest shifts in marketing technology. We spotlight what matters, who's leading (or lagging), and what's next. In Martech, clarity is power — and we're here to deliver it.

00;00;06;07 - 00;00;27;15
Speaker 1
Welcome to the Making Sense of MarTech podcast, where we interview leaders and put them in the hot seat. I'm Jacqueline Friedman, founder of Monarch and head of advisory for the MarTech Weekly. Let's dove in and meet Nihar. Dan Wahala a little about her. Aha is the head of MarTech at sea bringing deep experience and expertize across digital marketing and MarTech strategy and operational readiness.

00;00;27;24 - 00;00;42;25
Speaker 1
She's previously worked at McAfee and into it, and she's known for bridging marketing and technology to drive transformation and business impact. So to start us off, we'll begin with a few quick rapid fire questions to get going. But first of all, thank you for being here. Welcome.

00;00;42;29 - 00;00;44;26
Speaker 2
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

00;00;44;27 - 00;00;52;05
Speaker 1
Glad to have you. I know it's a little late for you this time of day just to start us off. What's your favorite martech tool you can't work without?

00;00;52;09 - 00;01;05;16
Speaker 2
Oh, I think it would be slack. I don't know if it doesn't matter to, but it's a great place to get it done, as I say. And everything can be first resolved on Slack before going to email to meetings.

00;01;05;22 - 00;01;29;01
Speaker 1
I agree I'm a 11 year Slack user at this point, so I definitely relate and also with all the latest couple of years of integrations beautifully. Yeah, I've also spoken to a number of conferences about Slack. I agree with you as a martech tool. It should not be a question. All right. Build versus buy. What's your just default instinctive answer on that?

00;01;29;05 - 00;01;41;16
Speaker 2
You know, I love to say this, that if I want control, I would build something. But if I want to get a good night's sleep, I would just buy some. So, yeah, if it's table six, always buy. But if it's no secret sauce, then you build.

00;01;42;01 - 00;01;54;13
Speaker 1
I think is the most succinct and best way to describe exactly that problem and quite awesome. What's a marketing buzz word you wish would just disappear from the ether and never hear from again?

00;01;54;19 - 00;02;17;04
Speaker 2
Oh gosh, this is deep in my existence today. It's called hyper personalization. And I just literally would die if I get another email that says Hello Data, but just completely misses the whole point of the email. So yeah, if it's all hyper then really, what's the new normal? It's everything is personalized.

00;02;17;10 - 00;02;33;24
Speaker 1
Yes, I agree. And also, I think our definition of personalization or hyper personalization is just way off from the reality of exactly a constant pain point for everyone. Agreed. This is a question we ask everyone. Who is someone you admire professionally or personally?

00;02;33;24 - 00;02;51;14
Speaker 2
I'll go the personal thing first because it's the easiest one and maybe the cheesiest answer you've heard. It's my mother, but I really think that she's one woman that has kind of lived through the ages of technology, and she can literally sell me a new piece of tech without giving me enough reasons as to why we need it.

00;02;51;14 - 00;03;15;27
Speaker 2
So she is really a great adapter of new things from my perspective, but professionally speaking I really adore the ways of how Satya Nadella at Microsoft really has given us a lot of empathy in tech, like his belief system in how to bring that empathy to work and build the growth mindset. It has really changed the way we operate today in our business.

00;03;15;28 - 00;03;19;05
Speaker 2
I professionally do think that he is a change maker.

00;03;19;06 - 00;03;31;24
Speaker 1
Definitely agree. So to start us off, how do you define the term marketing engineer in this new generation of MarTech leaders, especially in your role at Seac and kind of what you've been witnessing in the industry?

00;03;31;24 - 00;04;08;12
Speaker 2
I feel like marketing engineers are like a lovechild between a marketer, a product manager, a software engineer, and they are not just folks that are supporting campaign execution. There are people that are understanding design. They understand how your business works. They want to build systems at scale with your mindset and your growth goals. So they're really the kind of people that unlock the questions between the questions and I have seen that they are a generation of will I call them, they are secretly everywhere in your system.

00;04;08;12 - 00;04;17;05
Speaker 2
But you've just realized the powers that they have. So when we say Avengers assemble, candidates come first and those are your marketing engineers.

00;04;17;08 - 00;04;38;07
Speaker 1
Will conduct forever. Also, I didn't realize this whole time I should be calling myself a marketing engineer. I feel completely gobsmacked that I've just been using the wrong term my whole career. I love and but also what kind of forever amazed.

00;04;38;15 - 00;04;43;25
Speaker 2
You'll know over a period of conversation with me that I have a lot of busy Marvel plans to make.

00;04;43;25 - 00;04;55;02
Speaker 1
But I would die now. I know nothing. But I will be saying, you know Superman. Mainly because in this cut I owe my dad a Father's Day dinner because I didn't feel well.

00;04;55;11 - 00;05;01;22
Speaker 2
It's the best he's passed. Yeah, but the DC condensed the Marvel Universe.

00;05;01;22 - 00;05;10;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, I had seen Wonder Woman, Black Panther and we'll see the New Superman, but I saw the original Iron Man. But, like, that's it. It's like, Oh.

00;05;11;18 - 00;05;15;05
Speaker 2
You need a Netflix senator. They would kind of go through the whole thing.

00;05;15;21 - 00;05;36;12
Speaker 1
That's true. That's true. All right. You've walked the path from strategist to ops leader to now my tech exec. Is this marketing engineer just a better version of the previous marketing technologist or is this an entirely different species? And did I mean to re rename my entire existence?

00;05;36;12 - 00;05;57;14
Speaker 2
I'm tempted to say that it's an upgrade to your existence, but it's really not. It's more like an evolution, I think. Like when I first started my career in the early 2000s and just kind of feels like ages me so much knowing that I started so early. But there was no technology that supported marketing at that time. There was no e-commerce, and then just it evolved.

00;05;57;14 - 00;06;28;29
Speaker 2
The only role you had in the company were marketing marketing strategy. And those are still like meal and stuff and fliers and events, but so it is an evolution of the role. It's actually a meeting point between strategy and execution, the more well, you grew in the adoption of these technologies, the more work happened in the market space and marketers became more savvy to like SEO and CRM and then paid and everything else.

00;06;28;29 - 00;06;54;18
Speaker 2
So it's really, you know, going from just thinking strategically to now building strategically. So it's definitely been an abduction and a journey and I've seen it myself. I went from being a strategist in the marketing space and customer technology and sales and operations, but everything kind of back to me at technology and technology and how it was used, adopted, became the most vital portion of my success.

00;06;54;22 - 00;07;06;21
Speaker 1
100% agreed with everything you're saying. I'm just thinking of that, like evolution of man chart and the evolution of marketing and marketing technology as a whole. It's spot on, for sure.

00;07;06;28 - 00;07;08;05
Speaker 2
Yes, absolutely.

00;07;08;11 - 00;07;19;02
Speaker 1
For marketers aspiring to become more tech leaders, what are the skills or maybe the aspects martech that folks should be investing in to develop?

00;07;19;10 - 00;07;41;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's a really good question and something that we will continue to answer as technology evolves. Like first we had technology that was implemented and then used. Now we have technology that's implemented that's thinking on its own and we've got AI that does a lot like automates everything for you. So it's an evolutionary process about what that is, that particular aspect that marketers would have to think about.

00;07;41;16 - 00;08;03;25
Speaker 2
So in this moment, I would say they need to zoom out and do a little bit more of system level thinking, understand how your data works, understand how your tools enable your outcomes. It's a difference between just fixing a form tonight, now fixing the entire funnel and then where does technology meet your funnel, right? Where can that enable it back and improve it?

00;08;03;25 - 00;08;23;09
Speaker 2
We're going to close the gap. So system thinking is something that marketers definitely are beginning to see is becoming a more part of their journey like product mindset. I think everybody should have a path mindset, treat every campaign, every platform like a product and solve the problem for the future. Just plugging problems today is not going to help, you know?

00;08;23;14 - 00;08;49;20
Speaker 2
So our mindset and then definitely continue to have the emotional IQ to still service the customer that's looking at that experience, which is what marketers innately bring to the table. But understanding that technology is going to meet that experience that is going to meet a human on the other side is still going to be very wide, don't understand where the experience is feeling or where we need to meet them in a better way.

00;08;49;26 - 00;08;52;15
Speaker 2
So continue to have the people emotional.

00;08;52;15 - 00;09;14;28
Speaker 1
Quotient since I know you love Marvel, it's making me better that this role has evolved to become like the superheroes of any company. Because if you're doing all the systems, thinking, your understanding about business objectives, they also understand the inner workings of how to make things make sense, like the nexus point. So which superhero do you think would be?

00;09;14;28 - 00;09;37;13
Speaker 2
I think it's the Iron Man because oh, was he was just an industrialist and he decided that the world needed someone to wear the armor and understand where the problems were. And so he built one, then he built the better one. And then that's the evolution of the Iron Man today. So I would definitely think that there are still humans on the inside would be where a great sort of technology.

00;09;37;15 - 00;10;08;14
Speaker 1
I love that. So you head out by excellent, excellent metaphor. Yeah, we've talked about some superheroes. So now that we've kind of identified the Iron Man of a company, in your view, like how is the line blurring between marketing and engineering within these MarTech team? You kind of mentioned this like marketing engineer as part software engineer, part this, part that like are they two separate, distinct things?

00;10;08;23 - 00;10;12;27
Speaker 1
Are they converging? What do you predict or see out in the market?

00;10;12;27 - 00;10;37;12
Speaker 2
I think that they are converging and somewhat the lines between these roles are almost disappearing. You know, you would see in a traditional organization and they were firm lines of what product would do and marketers would do what technology would do. It's it was almost like a funnel of its own. You know, part of decides something goes to market and then technology builds it and it's in all the other processes.

00;10;37;12 - 00;10;58;21
Speaker 2
So but all of these lines are sort of learning because of the central point being everybody needs to own the product, everybody needs to own the customer call, everybody needs to be. And that's because technology is bringing all of these things much more closer together. And it's making it easier for every person within the organization to know what's happening in the other person's shoe.

00;10;59;07 - 00;11;23;01
Speaker 2
So the lines are disappearing. A product person can understand and how exactly a technology is building an experience. A marketer can understand how sales is happening, they can look at the numbers. So it's definitely disappearing over time. I think there have to be over a course of time in the organization, units of people that are going to chase a certain goal, but they will have roles in product marketing, technology.

00;11;23;01 - 00;11;46;29
Speaker 2
But all working together, it was like, you know, think of it as an agile sprint framework where there would be representations from everywhere and everyone will drive an agenda. So I think the evolution for modern SAS companies is going to be these smaller tago units that are going to chase goals sources just to one large piece of people kind of chasing one portion of the business.

00;11;47;00 - 00;12;10;23
Speaker 1
Agreed. We got to break up those silos and this is a great starting point. And so exactly for those who are trying to figure out how to unseat Silo, what is historically always very siloed, what structure to your team, to a culture do you try to foster to create collaboration between the marketers and the tech team? Building the tech or building upon the tech.

00;12;10;29 - 00;12;33;10
Speaker 2
Yeah, such a great question because the main idea is to break down the silo and the breaking down the silo means to understand what you are marching towards as a goal and have a shared understanding of that KPI. Whether it's an objective, it's a goal, whatever that is, begin to have the same definitions for your data, begin to have the same definitions of your ideal customer.

00;12;33;11 - 00;13;02;17
Speaker 2
Begin to have the same definitions around what a customer journey ideally would look like with everyone. I think that is going to really break down the silo in the first place. So always have a mindset of having to be able to share that ownership across everyone. Being able to have a more transparent prioritization process where product and marketing and sales and marketing all come together to understand what needs to happen to meet that particular goal.

00;13;02;17 - 00;13;29;09
Speaker 2
And prioritization is such an important piece of the whole puzzle. I can't even begin to tell you that lots of teams you lose sight of what they're trying to do because they're not prioritizing the right things because they don't understand where the blockers are. So structure and prioritization and clear objectives as a whole will drive you to this place where everyone will share the vision instead of holding it in one spot and entirely.

00;13;29;09 - 00;13;51;16
Speaker 1
It makes me think one of my favorite ways to try to help in those situations is the Eisenhower principle and really understanding the priority versus urgency. And I think a fair amount organizations get stuck in which one is the most revenue generating, and if it doesn't generate revenue, it's not worth prioritizing. And I mean, I've been on the receiving end of like, hey, this doesn't bring us any money.

00;13;51;19 - 00;13;54;06
Speaker 1
It saves internal money. It promises it does.

00;13;54;10 - 00;13;56;29
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely this time.

00;13;56;29 - 00;14;09;04
Speaker 1
And it's very helpful to get out of just budget wise thinking. It's, it's really like what has the most impact ultimately, whether it's internal to your customers, you name it.

00;14;09;04 - 00;14;19;14
Speaker 2
Exactly. And having that shared empathy for that impact. Right. Everyone has to be equally devoted to that cause for it to move forward.

00;14;19;14 - 00;14;33;04
Speaker 1
And to your point, that's where that standardization as a personal standardization nerd is really helpful. When you're speaking the same language, you have the same ultimate goals. You might have different ways to get there, but yeah, you're working towards the same thing.

00;14;33;07 - 00;14;34;23
Speaker 2
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

00;14;34;28 - 00;14;51;18
Speaker 1
So we've been talking about some of the mechanics. I'm curious what you think of operational readiness, what that means in general for those who don't know. And also how do you balance building for the future needs while also, to your point, staying agile and just managing the day to day?

00;14;51;28 - 00;15;15;09
Speaker 2
I am in love with this portion of the business operational readiness because it's like being ready for something that you're never going to be ready for, but have a plan for it or a plan and A and B for it. And it begins with the understanding that change is going to happen. We just have to figure it out when change comes, how we're going to react to it.

00;15;15;09 - 00;15;38;06
Speaker 2
So that in a nutshell is what is called operational readiness, the ability to have a very clear view of how decisions get made. It shouldn't be at your doorstep. And then you think about, hey, this is is this worth my time? How much risk is it going to be for us? You should be ready with the framework of this is how we make decisions when we need to in the hour too.

00;15;38;06 - 00;16;05;18
Speaker 2
It's about removing the bottlenecks and making sure that there are right folks in the right places to make those decisions and percolate them throughout the organization. Three is always working in this 7020 ten rule that I say, which is 70% is from the business. 20% is going to be towards the future and 10% is always experimental if you continue to give your tech that or your tech plans.

00;16;05;18 - 00;16;27;07
Speaker 2
The 7020 ten rule, you're always going to have that 10% that's looking in a very future forward way and continue to have that change percolate through your systems on an ongoing basis with what is it coming at your doorstep as a surprise. So balance for the future is very, very important. Always give to take that very, very important.

00;16;27;07 - 00;16;41;29
Speaker 1
Yeah. I love the actual numbers, the percentages of how everyone should think about their week and so you really can easily break it down into the hours you need this amount of hours per week to be thinking about X, Y and Z versus.

00;16;41;29 - 00;16;42;20
Speaker 2
Absolutely.

00;16;42;21 - 00;17;01;18
Speaker 1
Have this to do list. And yes, you do, but maybe we categorize it slightly differently and it's like this is building for the future of this is maintaining this is doing this and that the other I love just that breakdown in particular. It's really helpful for folks thank you. We've been talking about operational readiness and how it's about building flexibility for change.

00;17;01;26 - 00;17;26;14
Speaker 1
It's adaptability. But can a MarTech team ever really be agile if they're built on years of legacy systems and locked into contracts that no longer serve them, but upper management is like it works fine. It would cost too much money. What are your recommendations? Because I know a lot of people are stuck in this and it's a hard place to be moving up against a boulder.

00;17;26;18 - 00;17;50;29
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think of this, like, almost like having a couple of pieces in your closet that you love their shiny new. And then there are some pieces that are old, but they kind of work. They don't do the best justice to the newest fashion trends, but nonetheless, they kind of meet your expectations. The trick here is to kind of repurpose them the historical legacy platforms into something that is workable.

00;17;51;07 - 00;18;13;07
Speaker 2
The idea is that we're never going to be truly agile of course not, because we have contracts. As you've already pointed out, we have historical history or data that's sitting somewhere in a legacy platform. So the idea is to remove or reduce the cost of making the changes and repurpose what we have today into something that we need for the future.

00;18;13;09 - 00;18;40;21
Speaker 2
So in the 7020 ten rule maybe should also help in the process where the 20% is always going to uplift what you have currently today to continuously optimize it so that you're not really sitting in the Stone Age and don't have to make a change so much so. And then you talked about sanitization. I love this idea about how do we standardize certain pieces of our processes, where do we decouple that from the legacy systems?

00;18;40;21 - 00;19;04;21
Speaker 2
Where do we bring this one? So really categorizing the work that you have in hand and forecasting what you're going to do in the future, using the piece of technology in the right way. That's why you need the confidence to come in and say, Yeah, we can do a lot more heavy lifting in this portion of the tech versus here is where we, I think, need speed and agility and velocity.

00;19;05;02 - 00;19;20;02
Speaker 2
So 7020 rule applies reduce change cost use your current pieces of tech like Legos, move them around as you need them. And then of course make the really strong decision and move away from legacy if it's absolutely draining your costs.

00;19;20;09 - 00;19;53;21
Speaker 1
So be a modular Tetris warrior is essentially when you said, I'm just taking your words, I think that makes a lot of sense and it's just really helpful, especially for folks who are stuck in that legacy situation and know there's more out there. There is a way to upgrade what you have, but if you're falling the 7020 ten rule, you also know, okay, when we hit a certain roadblock or a limitation that is now worth spending more time investing to make that a part of the 70% instead of just the future.

00;19;53;21 - 00;19;54;07
Speaker 1
10%?

00;19;54;19 - 00;20;16;24
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. Size and absolute. Exactly. You know, if you know how you make decisions, then you would follow that framework. And the framework really just does the work for you. It's like, you know, pop it in an Excel file and, you know, put in all your risk values. And that said, you don't even have to probably, you know, take a few meetings to be able to make that choice.

00;20;16;24 - 00;20;27;19
Speaker 2
But as long as you stick to that framework consistently, consistency is key here. Prioritization, bringing the right people to make those decisions quickly. I think people can move forward very fast.

00;20;27;23 - 00;20;31;09
Speaker 1
Do you have any particular favorite frameworks for decision making?

00;20;31;14 - 00;20;58;08
Speaker 2
Actually, I don't. Every company has very different ideas about decision making. I just go with the SWOT, which is the easiest one to do or have ratio or DC when it comes to sprint planning, accountability. But for technology, it's really hard to have a particular framework that works for everybody is as long as investments in two investments out the next two three year outlook and meet your requirements, I think that should be a good baseline to go with.

00;20;58;09 - 00;21;27;09
Speaker 1
Agreed. I'm a big fan of raises. I think they just make it clear. Make it simple. Yeah. Yeah. In a very guess your intuition. Yes, exactly. And so we've been talking obviously a lot about tech and the people using it. And so I'm curious, do you think marketers lean too much on tech to solve problems, whether they're people problems, process problems, like where do you see the line between useful tooling and hiding behind the platform.

00;21;28;04 - 00;21;48;08
Speaker 2
Without putting all the market is under the bus on this. But no, I think that both parties kind of lean on each other a lot. They're interdependent. So, yes, I do see that there is a lot of dependency on who tech is going to just make this go away. But tech is again an enabler. So remember that it's only as good as your strategy.

00;21;48;08 - 00;22;24;05
Speaker 2
And if there is no strategy, there will be no more of tech is going to save us from the sunken costs that we have. So I do think there's a dependency on board and engineers do depend on marketers to tell them exactly what they need to build. If like we've talked about this in the earlier part of our conversation that the lines are getting blurry, the more curious each party becomes to each other's roles and what they are hoping to achieve and they have shared knowledge of the objectives and the dependency will lift and it will be more of a partnership to say, I'm thinking of this idea.

00;22;24;05 - 00;22;49;19
Speaker 2
Are there sustainable ways to build this sustainable way to buy this? And engineers can say, we already have it and let's not try to reinvent the wheel. Let's use what we have. Right. I do believe that the breaking down of the silos, the shared concepts of objectives and KPIs, the curiosity in each other's roles will drive a more efficient way of thinking and lifting the interdependency that folks have with each other.

00;22;49;25 - 00;23;14;14
Speaker 1
Agreed and makes me think of. I have a it's definitely not my phrase only, but I think of S.O.S. like shiny objects and drone and yeah, so not every team is subject to it. I feel like marketing and marketers haven't just to be the most targeted, mainly because it's marketing. It's really hard. Everyone thinks they can do it until they realize how hard it is.

00;23;14;22 - 00;23;15;19
Speaker 2
Absolutely.

00;23;15;21 - 00;23;28;19
Speaker 1
Versus most people wouldn't say I'm a software engineer unless they actually know how to be a software engineer. So it's always that. And I think we get the bad rep to wrap without.

00;23;28;19 - 00;23;54;08
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I think marketers jobs are getting even tougher given that there's so much technology, there's so much pressure on them to personalize everything, model, create for something, find the right data, but they are role is become critical to understanding exactly who they want to target, why they want to targeted, and then bring in their partners from tech to see how can we do this.

00;23;54;08 - 00;24;13;28
Speaker 2
Right. So I think both parties have a very critical role to play and there is a solution. That's the good news here. Once you get the partnership right, I think everything work is just like being in a good marriage. I think what both husband and wife need to speak the same language to be able to move forward.

00;24;13;28 - 00;24;29;15
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think of any relationship, whether it's a marriage or a friendship doesn't matter your gender, you have to have one same core values. You have to have the same core beliefs in stepping off point absolute when the friction comes when that is not it's not there.

00;24;29;22 - 00;24;30;12
Speaker 2
Exactly.

00;24;30;16 - 00;24;40;20
Speaker 1
All right. Kind of thinking the broader picture, but bigger. What trends do you think we should be looking out for in the career path of a marketing engineer?

00;24;40;21 - 00;25;03;28
Speaker 2
There's so many. I feel like it can go in so many directions. One can take the path of becoming a marketer who is very well embedded, like a t shape, sort of career path to say deep expertize in tech, but broad expertize across the business. So the CMO route would be great for someone who is beginning to think about more marketing strategy coming out of technology and vice versa.

00;25;03;28 - 00;25;32;08
Speaker 2
If you know, marketer wants to come back into doing more technology pieces, I think the data is becoming a vertical that is more and more important. Also a very good connective tissue between product marketing and technology. How data get stitched, how it gets housed, how it gets cleaned. I think if a marketer has a curiosity in the world of data, there is just so much that they can bring from their understanding of how that data is getting good place to date.

00;25;32;08 - 00;25;56;03
Speaker 2
The people that mined data may not really exactly know where the data is getting optimized, but a marketer lives. So if you want to be that passion for pipeline, maybe something that you can do. There is currently I don't see like a very big picture in in the growth of a martech person because it's still at a ceiling where it's still steady at technology.

00;25;56;03 - 00;26;19;24
Speaker 2
I think that ceiling is going to be broken soon where we can as martech folks can actually go into business strategy, business strategy operations. I think our mindsets are really built for that, like growth officers or customer offices, etc.. So there are quite a lot of opportunities in the market. As the technology evolves. We're yet to see what we can bring to the table in terms of careers.

00;26;19;24 - 00;26;52;23
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'm excited for that ceiling to be broken because yeah, well, I have a bias here. I do think the martech person, the marketing engineer, actually would be a really good CMO. Both. They know how to talk to different audiences that are completely different of themselves, not just talking about your customers on internal customers and stakeholders, but also they can see how people process in technology in unison, can make everything, just empower it, make it work better, and honestly, just make everyone's life easier.

00;26;53;29 - 00;26;57;04
Speaker 1
Yeah, but my bias is showing just a little bit at all.

00;26;57;04 - 00;27;26;18
Speaker 2
Right, you can have one. I do definitely think that there's a lot of growth in the space for the marketer to become a marketing strategist for sure. I think it just makes sense since we've already talked about the lines getting blurry. It it'll be so great for CMO to understand the technology and the jargon. So when we drop and say APIs and decays and you know, tdps and if a marketer understood that right, or the leadership understood at the right goal, we would not have a problem of selling the technology to our senior leadership.

00;27;26;18 - 00;27;28;25
Speaker 2
People would just know what we're talking about.

00;27;28;26 - 00;27;49;14
Speaker 1
Agreed. And kind of harking back to something we talked about in terms of legacy platforms, I have a feeling if someone who is in the current MarTech space understands how one technologies evolving to what is or isn't working in the present day of next generation platforms, there'll be far fewer top down decision making as opposed to what.

00;27;49;15 - 00;27;50;06
Speaker 2
Platforms that.

00;27;50;21 - 00;27;53;23
Speaker 1
Actually work for those in the tool.

00;27;53;23 - 00;27;54;19
Speaker 2
Absolutely.

00;27;54;25 - 00;28;01;02
Speaker 1
And so I think you're just being more informed decision making as well as platform decisioning as well.

00;28;01;04 - 00;28;28;27
Speaker 2
Yeah. And we've come a great way actually in the world of MarTech technology and tools, right, from like just using Heatmaps and doing funnel metrics to now doing, you know, profile level PII information and you know, profile freshness and readiness. We've come a long way since then, so it will be great to have each and every person become a technologist in the business and then make those decisions a lot more easier to make.

00;28;29;08 - 00;28;31;22
Speaker 2
Bottoms up. So I totally agree with you.

00;28;32;00 - 00;28;44;21
Speaker 1
Great. And also the fact that we haven't even mentioned AI this entire episode is both surprise. Exactly. Maybe that's what you meant. When? What word would you like to never hear? I guess.

00;28;45;10 - 00;29;04;09
Speaker 2
Yes, yes. I could have said that. I could have said that. But there's a lot of debate. We can have a whole podcast around AI and what is the condition around it? What is the usage? How how risky is that going to be? But sorry, you were saying something about it that we haven't mentioned, AI, because I.

00;29;04;09 - 00;29;10;14
Speaker 1
Was just I don't know, all included. I was just like, I realize we haven't even talked about it. And yet I was working well. Time.

00;29;11;26 - 00;29;12;08
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;29;13;02 - 00;29;17;17
Speaker 1
Okay. Is there anything else you want to particularly say before I ask the last question?

00;29;17;24 - 00;29;20;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's good. And I don't want to say anything, anything additional.

00;29;20;19 - 00;29;32;28
Speaker 1
All right. Now we're on our last question, so ask everyone as well. Who is someone we should also have on the podcast and in parentheses, I should just put preferably women.

00;29;32;28 - 00;29;36;21
Speaker 2
Yes, I think I have a laundry list of people you could have, but.

00;29;37;04 - 00;29;38;10
Speaker 1
I like lists.

00;29;38;23 - 00;30;03;28
Speaker 2
Yes. So let me begin with someone that I've seen at work. So my previous employer into it, there is a great woman leader, a lot of resources. She was our chief growth officer, CMO, really amazing to see her in motion. Bringing in adopting technology. As the times have changed, QuickBooks was one of their shelf products that went from being a desk to being a cloud based offering.

00;30;03;28 - 00;30;28;28
Speaker 2
And what she has done for technology to come in at the right time and the right place at the same time, driving the right customer sentiment for so many years, it has been phenomenal. So I'd love to see her on the show. She's really CMO who is also technologist. Just so what we were talking about, she really blurred that line from the folks that I admire in terms of reading.

00;30;28;28 - 00;30;52;17
Speaker 2
I love Brendan Purcell from pastors, you know, everybody needs it, but he has some really great, sharp views around customer intelligence and the intersection of tech and trust and we haven't talked about AI, but being, you know, the future of it. How will that impact marketers and technologists? I would really love his point of view on where all of this is going.

00;30;52;17 - 00;31;03;14
Speaker 2
And the last segment, I'll leave it at that. Scott Brinker from, he's in that top spot. He's practically the godfather of technology and how good he.

00;31;03;15 - 00;31;04;29
Speaker 1
Is, and he knows that, too.

00;31;05;20 - 00;31;21;27
Speaker 2
I would love to hear from him. On what are his trends in his mind and where all of this is going, especially around careers in MarTech. I would love to hear Scott share some light on how he came about his and what we can do to sharpen our tools that says technologists.

00;31;22;02 - 00;31;31;18
Speaker 1
Agree on all of the above. Well, thank you so much. And I have one for coming on here into staying up a little later than planned. But also where can folks find you.

00;31;31;19 - 00;31;43;00
Speaker 2
While LinkedIn is the best source for me? So you can just look me up at Adekola at LinkedIn and I'm happy to chat and happy to take this conversation forward whenever you want.

00;31;43;00 - 00;31;46;18
Speaker 1
To pass up. Thanks so much.