Beyond Revenue – Narratives of Revenue Leaders [with Michael Jäger]

Most CROs came up through sales. Nick Geurds came up through marketing and built revenue engines most sales leaders can't replicate.

Nick Geurds, CRO at Datamaran and former CCO at Lepaya (7→40M ARR), joins Michael Jäger to unpack what happens when a marketer carries the number. The edge it creates. The blind spots it hides. And the costly ICP mistake that took over a year to recover from.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — The signal-driven ABM engine: how Nick built one of the first scalable, personalised ABM programmes across 3,000+ named accounts — before AI made it easy — and watched close rates climb from 15% to 30%+.

✌️ Win #2 — Unbundling a $250K suite: how Nick cut sales cycles from 9 months to sub-3 months by going land and expand — and had the tense board conversation to prove it was worth it.

🌱 Fail — The ICP expansion that looked like growth: why moving from enterprise to mid-market at Lepaya generated four months of record bookings — then triggered a retention crisis that redirected the entire team away from new business.

If you're scaling a revenue motion and wondering whether your ICP is built to last or just built to close fast, this episode is for you.

Connect with Nick:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickgeurds/

🔗 Datamaran: https://www.datamaran.com

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Nick's background

01:07 — What's keeping Nick up at night at Datamaran

02:32 — What pulled a CMO into the CRO seat

03:45 — Selling ESG software in one sentence

05:18 — What nobody warned Nick about

08:27 — Win #1: The signal-driven ABM engine (15% → 30%+ close rates)

11:10 — The real lesson: make a plan, stick to the plan

12:45 — Win #2: Unbundling a $250K suite (9 months → sub-3 month cycles)

14:11 — Why land and expand builds lifetime value, not just revenue

15:18 — The Fail: ICP expansion that looked like growth

19:09 — Understanding business behaviour before you scale

21:30 — Key takeaways

EMEA isn't one region. It's many, each at a different stage of technology adoption, investment maturity, and cultural business logic. Leading growth across all of them at once is one of the hardest leadership challenges in enterprise sales.

Petra Jenner, GM and SVP EMEA at Splunk, joins Michael Jäger to share what it actually takes to scale a complex enterprise organisation across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, in a market where AI is accelerating faster than most companies can protect themselves from it. Previously CEO of Microsoft Austria and Switzerland, and a senior leader at Salesforce, Petra brings decades of hard-won operational experience to a conversation that goes well beyond theory.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — One common vision of success: how Petra aligns organisations spanning dozens of markets and cultures around a single mission statement and why this one structural decision consistently outperforms every tactical initiative she's seen.

✌️ Win #2 — The courage to stop and rebuild: how Petra identified a go-to-market motion that was producing results — just not enough of them — paused it entirely, redesigned the partner engagement model from scratch, and is now leading globally with an initiative other regions are following.

🌱 Fail — Going broad with partners instead of deep: why an ambitious system integrator strategy that looked right on paper spread the team too thin, produced cherry-picking instead of traction, and taught Petra that depth with fewer partners consistently beats breadth with many.

If you lead a regional or multi-market organisation — or you're trying to scale an enterprise GTM motion across cultures, continents, and complexity — this episode gives you the leadership framework and operational honesty you won't find in a management textbook.

Connect with Petra:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petrajenner/

🔗 Splunk: https://www.splunk.com/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Petra's background

00:47 — What makes EMEA uniquely complex to scale

03:30 — Leading at the intersection of AI, data and security

06:03 — How AI is exposing companies faster than they can protect themselves

06:49 — Balancing standardisation vs local autonomy across EMEA

10:11 — Why control through KPIs beats control through micromanagement

11:43 — Win #1: Creating one common vision of success

13:46 — Why mission statements work — and why teams are sceptical at first

14:35 — Win #2: The courage to stop, rebuild, and lead globally with a new model

16:25 — Redesigning the partner go-to-market from scratch

17:21 — The fail: going broad with system integrators instead of deep

19:01 — What Petra would do differently — fewer partners, much more depth

20:00 — Key takeaways

22:00 — Closing

Most marketing teams bolt AI onto existing workflows and call it transformation. The teams actually moving fast have changed how they operate entirely.

Johanna Fagerstedt, fractional CMO, board member, former CMO at Mentimeter, joins Michael Jäger to break down what AI-native marketing actually looks like in practice. With 16+ years scaling B2B SaaS internationally and a podcast dedicated to going under the hood of AI-native companies, Johanna brings honest, specific perspective on where AI genuinely changes the game and where it quietly destroys trust.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Ship fast, learn faster: how Johanna launched a full podcast in hours by treating "good enough and live" as the real standard — and why that mindset beats perfection every time

✌️ Win #2 — The AI-built website: how she rebuilt her entire online presence in Claude, starting from first-principles positioning, with no CMS and no agency — and an AI agent optimising it daily.

🌱 Fail — Trusting AI with something that needed a human: she sent a colleague an AI-generated meeting summary without reviewing it. It was full of hallucinations. The colleague was upset and trust took a hit.

Whether you lead marketing, run a GTM function, or are figuring out how to actually operate in an AI-native world, this episode gives you a concrete, honest look at what works — and what happens when you hand off too much too fast.

Connect with Johanna:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johanna-fagerstedt/

🎙️ AI Native Marketer Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/13AYYwOR5xql9h23jNXLtD?si=d50dae5f17634c63

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Johanna's background

01:48 — How AI is changing the way marketing operates

03:45 — When Johanna first saw AI's real potential (2020)

06:00 — Win #1: Launching a podcast the AI-native way

08:04 — The tools and process behind it

10:00 — Win #2: Building a website entirely in Claude

13:00 — Why first-principles positioning matters more than ever

15:00 — The fail: AI hallucinations in a sensitive 1-to-1 summary

17:53 — Why trust is the new capital in B2B

20:26 — The human work AI can't replace

23:25 — Key takeaways

Most B2B marketing is built to capture demand. But what if your buyers won't be ready for seven years?

Audrey Digonnat, CMO at Asys and former Google product marketing leader, joins Michael Jäger to break down why brand preference isn't a vanity metric: it's tomorrow's pipeline. With experience scaling product marketing at fintech unicorn Agicap and launching Google Pixel in France, Audrey brings a rare combination of product depth, enterprise GTM instinct, and an honest relationship with what doesn't work.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Brand preference as a pipeline strategy: how Audrey builds relevance and trust with buyers years before they're ready to buy — using niche expert partnerships, a €500 WhatsApp community post that generated two leads, and a talk show format that turns Asys into a trusted media brand.

✌️ Win #2 — Customer success under marketing: why Audrey moved her CS team inside the marketing organisation — unlocking nearly €100K in ARR, turning passive customers into active promoters, and making word of mouth a channel you can actually influence.

🌱 Fail — Paid ads that captured but didn't create: why a significant investment in paid advertising delivered brand search results but failed to generate new demand — and the deliberate decision to pause, re-skill, and come back later.

If you lead marketing or GTM in B2B — especially in enterprise or long-cycle environments — this episode reframes where your pipeline actually comes from and how far in advance you need to start building it.

Connect with Audrey:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/audrey-digonnat/

🔗 Asys: https://www.asys.fr/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Audrey's background

01:03 — From Google Pixel to B2B SaaS: Audrey's career path

03:52 — Biggest challenge right now: pipeline predictability and agentic AI

05:43 — The B2B marketing trend Audrey doesn't follow

06:17 — The Google principle that still guides her today: know the user, know the magic

07:59 — Win #1: Brand preference as a pipeline strategy

09:44 — Niche expert partnerships and the €500 WhatsApp post

11:41 — Leveraging company DNA to win a seven-figure deal

15:25 — How brand preference lowers your cost of acquisition over time

16:47 — Win #2: Customer success inside the marketing organisation

18:57 — Nearly €100K ARR unlocked — without pushing for it

20:45 — Why closing the deal is not the finish line

21:45 — The fail: paid ads that captured but didn't create demand

22:07 — Knowing when to pause and reshape the budget

23:06 — Key takeaways

24:03 — Where to find Audrey

Most CFOs are hired to control costs. The best ones quietly become the most important growth driver in the room.

Robert Checchia, CFO at Benzinga — one of the most-read financial media and data businesses in the US — joins Michael Jäger to break down what modern CFO leadership actually looks like when it's pointed at growth. With a background spanning investment banking, private equity, and hands-on operations, Robert brings a rare combination of financial rigour and operator instinct to the conversation.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Rebuilding the P&L by revenue stream: how Robert restructured financial reporting away from department silos into a business-line view — unlocking real CAC, true contribution margin, and smarter resource allocation across every revenue line.

✌️ Win #2 — Pricing as a growth lever and a calculated bet on Asia: why pricing is the most underrated lever in SaaS and media, and how a data-backed decision to launch in Asia became Benzinga's fastest-growing business two years later.

🌱 Fail — Over-engineering the model: why Robert's instinct to build rigorous, sophisticated financial models repeatedly created more noise than clarity — and what the 80/20 rule taught him about the real purpose of analysis.

If you're a CFO, founder, or revenue leader trying to connect financial strategy to actual growth — this episode gives you the operating principles that make the difference between a controller and a true growth partner.

Connect with Robert:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-g-checchia-cfa/

🔗 Benzinga: https://www.benzinga.com/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Robert's background

01:42 — What Benzinga does and who it serves

04:00 — The metric most founders and MDs get wrong: blended CAC

05:25 — Investment banking vs CFO — which prepared him better for real growth?

07:07 — Win #1: Rebuilding the P&L by revenue stream

09:24 — How business leaders started coming to finance with ideas

10:18 — Win #2: Pricing as an underrated growth lever

12:30 — The calculated bet on Asia — and why it paid off

13:29 — The fail: over-engineering models and forecasting

15:20 — The 80/20 rule applied to financial analysis

16:10 — Key takeaways: behaviours follow incentives

19:27 — Where to find Robert

Entering a new market looks exciting from the outside. Inside, it's credibility gaps, unknown brands, and hiring battles where no one's heard of you yet.

David von Hilchen, Director of Sales and Country Lead DACH at StackAdapt, joins Michael Jäger to share what it actually takes to build a regional organisation from scratch — for the sixth time. StackAdapt is one of the most advanced AI-driven programmatic advertising platforms globally, and David is the person tasked with making it matter in Germany.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Vertical sales from day one: why David ignored the global playbook and built a verticalized sales team across five priority industries before StackAdapt had any brand recognition in market.

✌️ Win #2 — Leadership-led hiring: how David personally pitched and recruited senior talent in a market where no one knew the company and why 3 out of 4 key hires came directly from his own outreach.

🌱 Fail — The vertical that didn't perform: healthcare was a priority on paper. In practice, finance and insurance pulled ahead. How David spotted it, adapted fast, and avoided letting one underperforming vertical drag the whole team down.

If you're in sales leadership, market expansion, or scaling a regional team from zero , this episode is the honest, operational breakdown you won't find in a market entry playbook.

Connect with David:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dvhilchen/

🔗 StackAdapt: https://www.stackadapt.com/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

00:00 — Intro & David's background

01:14 — What day-to-day looks like when you're building from scratch

02:33 — First hire in DACH and why

04:03 — What's harder: convincing German clients or convincing HQ to invest?

05:23 — One word to describe launching a new market

05:47 — Win #1: Vertical sales from day one

09:07 — How the team covered verticals operationally with a small headcount

10:19 — Win #2: Founder-led hiring when no one knows your brand

12:30 — The fail: the vertical that didn't take off

14:31 — Key takeaways: agility as the core market entry skill

16:50 — Where to find David

Most CMOs are handed a marketing budget and told to generate leads. The best ones quietly rewire how the entire company goes to market.

Maria Berghäll, CMO and GTM leader at Lundahl Transformers, Top 10 GTM Voices of the Nordics 2026, joins Michael Jäger to talk about what it actually takes to lead marketing inside a complex, industrial B2B company — where sales cycles stretch across years, trust is the only real currency, and the modern GTM playbook often does more harm than good.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Repositioning from component supplier to community voice: how Maria shifted Lundahl's messaging away from technical specs toward the feeling of music — and turned cold-shoulder brands into eager collaborators.

✌️ Win #2 — Democratising sales knowledge: how Maria helped transfer decades of founder-held relationship capital into a shared, scalable sales structure that the whole team can execute.

🌱 Fail — Paid ads in the wrong environment: why chasing performance marketing in an industry built on long-term trust burned budget, created frustration, and ultimately sent Maria back to the basics that actually work.

If you lead marketing, GTM, or revenue in a complex B2B environment where urgency doesn't close deals, this episode is the honest reality check you didn't know you needed.

Connect with Maria:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaberghall/

🔗 Lundahl Transformers: https://www.lundahltransformers.com/

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Maria's background

02:47 — Unlearning modern GTM shortcuts in industrial B2B

03:24 — The belief that changed: marketing doesn't stop at the lead

04:49 — What leaders constantly underestimate in complex B2B

06:50 — Win #1: Repositioning from component supplier to community voice

10:03 — How Maria validated the new approach (and knew it was working)

11:44 — Win #2: Democratising founder-held sales knowledge

14:34 — Early results and what's still in progress

14:58 — The fail: paid ads in the wrong environment

18:50 — Going back to basics: who's actually buying from us?

19:04 — Key takeaways

21:07 — Where to find Maria

You closed the deal. Now who owns the customer?Most revenue organisations are built to win new business. Far fewer are built to keep it and grow it. Mark Reich, CRO of Lawpilots, has spent the last two years rebuilding exactly that: a full revenue engine where sales and customer success aren't siloed functions but two sides of the same customer relationship.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — The hunter-farmer split that changed the game: how Mark restructured lawpilots' revenue org with specialised roles, separate incentive structures, and a clear handoff model and why that focus fixed both the new business and post-sales motion.

✌️ Win #2 — From product-led to service-led CS: how shifting to a project management mindset, in-person workshops, and proactive adoption tracking drove a 10% NRR improvement in year one.

🌱 Fail — The inbound-led outbound machine that nobody could operate: Mark's team built a sophisticated, intent-driven outbound system with enrichment flows, ABM triggers, and multi-stakeholder sequencing. It took four months to set up. The sales team couldn't use it.

If you're a CRO, VP Sales, or CS leader trying to connect the full revenue arc — from pipeline to retention — this episode gives you a grounded, honest look at what actually moves the needle.

Connect with Mark:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-reich/

🔗 Lawpilots: https://lawpilots.com

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode Timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Mark's background

01:17 — How Mark defines the CRO role at lawpilots

02:59 — How the CRO role has changed in five years

05:22 — Sales vs CS: the biggest source of friction

07:42 — CRO best practices that do more harm than good (OKRs)

11:38 — Win #1: The hunter-farmer split and role specialisation

13:40 — Win #2: Moving CS from product-led to service-led

16:47 — The result: 10% NRR improvement in year one

17:25 — The fail: the outbound machine nobody could run

20:18 — Key takeaways

23:01 — Where to find Mark

Sales and marketing say they're aligned. The data tells a different story.

Ylva Eriksson, CMO at Winningtemp and B2B marketing leader with experience scaling across multiple markets, joins Michael Jäger to get practical about what sales and marketing alignment actually requires, beyond the manager relationship and the good intentions.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Aligning the systems: how implementing an account-based marketing platform (N.Rich) gave sales and marketing a shared view of every touchpoint and finally made it possible to show sales the real value of marketing activity.

✌️ Win #2 — Building events and webinars as a joint effort: how co-creating content with sales input leads to more relevant programmes, more engaged reps, and, as one top-performing AE put it, a reason to stay in touch with every target account.

🌱 Fail — The cold outreach agency that didn't deliver: why bringing in an agency for quick results in an unknown market almost never works, what Ylva's team got wrong, and the one condition under which agencies actually do perform.

If you lead marketing, run a sales team, or sit anywhere along the GTM motion, this episode gives you three concrete moves for turning "we're aligned" from a talking point into something you can see in the data.

Connect with Ylva:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAAAPZSd8BqpYQgCwYGQy4rej6v03FcD0iwGc/

🔗 Winningtemp: https://www.winningtemp.com

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Ylva's background

01:17 — What the CMO role at Winningtemp actually involves

02:26 — The biggest misalignment when companies scale internationally

04:05 — The most common myth about sales and marketing alignment

05:13 — How to know alignment is broken even when everyone says it's fine

05:57 — Where to start when aligning sales and marketing in a new market

06:39 — Win #1: Aligning the systems with ABM (N.Rich)

08:34 — Win #2: Events and webinars built together with sales

10:03 — Fail: The cold outreach agency that didn't deliver

13:51 — Key takeaways

Most enterprise deals don't die because of the product. They die because of internal alignment debt, over-engineered selling teams, and a champion with no budget.

Thomas Cser, Head of DACH Revenue & Growth at Stripe — and former enterprise leader at SAP, Salesforce, and ServiceNow — joins Michael Jäger to unpack what it actually takes to move complex, multi-stakeholder deals from interest to decision in 2026.

In this episode:

✌️ Win #1 — Go vertical or go generic: how building real industry depth — the right talent, the right language, the right use cases — accelerates trust, shortens cycles, and shifts conversations from "software features" to business impact.

✌️ Win #2 — Focus beats motion: why ruthless ICP discipline and geographic focus outperform opportunistic deal-chasing — and how long it actually takes for the compounding effect to show

🌱 Fail — The over-orchestrated deal: what happens when too many people get involved too early and why a small, sharp team with a strong AE beats a swarm every time.

Whether you're running enterprise sales or trying to scale a complex GTM motion, this episode gives you a sharp lens on what separates precision deal-making from hope-based chaos.

Connect with Thomas:

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomascser/

🔗 Stripe: https://stripe.com

🎙️ Beyond Revenue is hosted by Michael Jäger, Managing Partner at Cremanski & Company. New episodes every Friday.

⏱️ Episode timestamps

00:00 — Intro & Thomas's background

01:53 — How enterprise selling has fundamentally changed in 20 years

04:55 — The real source of complexity most teams underestimate

06:33 — Early warning signs a deal is drifting

09:07 — What separates orchestrated from chaotic deals

09:57 — Win #1: Going vertical to win enterprise trust

13:27 — Win #2: Focus, focus, focus — ruthless ICP discipline

17:31 — Fail: Over-orchestrating deals with too many people too early

19:56 — Episode recap & key takeaways