Finite By Clarity: B2B Marketing Podcast for Tech, Software & SaaS

For years, a marketing team's value was measured by their headcount and their budget. That equation is breaking down. As AI moves from writing assistant to agentic orchestrator, the companies pulling ahead are driving more revenue with fewer people. 

In this episode of the Finite by Clarity podcast, Jodi Norris sits down with Colin Piper to unpack what it takes to build a marketing team in the AI era. As BuildOps' first CMO, Colin inherited a team of fewer than ten and chose to grow it deliberately, to around 20 people in a 500-person company. 

But Colin hasn't always worked with lean teams. Through ten years at Autodesk Colin rose from early-stage product marketer during the company's move to the cloud to leading a 100-plus person marketing organisation across its construction technology vertical. 

This perspective makes for an excellent view of trade-offs and advantages of lean teams in an era of AI. 

Inside you'll find…

• Efficiency over headcount: why revenue per head is becoming the new badge of honour for marketing leaders
• The orchestrator hire: why Colin looks for boundary-spanners over specialists, and the full-stack marketer that may come next
• Where lean stops: field marketing, ABM, and the human work AI can't automate

Meagen Eisenberg has deployed over 300 active AI agents to drive 31% year-on-year growth in pipeline per marketing dollar spent. Wow. 

In this episode of the Finite Podcast, Jodi Norris sits down with Meagen, CMO at Samsara, to unpack what happens when a marketing organisation puts autonomy, not automation, at the centre of its workflow. 

Beyond the headline number, Samsara is running 113 active agents in production workflows, with a further 37 in development, and 200 more handling personal productivity, including a website assistant whose quarterly pipeline has quadrupled. 

Meagen explains why agentic marketing is a genuine philosophical shift rather than a new channel, why hiring criteria have changed accordingly, and how human judgement and review cycles remain essential even as agents take on more of the workflow. 

Meagen Eisenberg is a four-time CMO and board advisor who has led marketing through IPOs and acquisitions at MongoDB, Navan (formerly TripActions), Lacework and now Samsara, and advises companies including Together AI and Gretel.ai. Across 25 exits since 2011, she has built a reputation for steering marketing organisations through structural, technology-driven change.

Inside you'll find…

• Why agentic marketing demands a different hiring and management philosophy to any previous shift in the discipline
• The metrics Samsara uses to prove agentic marketing's return, and the results behind them
• How human taste and judgement remain the essential checkpoint in an increasingly autonomous workflow

"How to not get electrocuted" is the advice Nikola Tesla once gave newspapers , back when electricity first reached London and New York and headlines warned it would kill you in the street. A century on, AI is no different.

In this episode of Finite by Clarity, Jodi Norris sits down with Paul Roehrig, chief strategy and marketing officer at Ascendion. 

Together they challenge the fear-led narrative dominating so much AI messaging, both the version aimed at customers and the quieter version playing out inside marketing teams themselves. 

Paul offers a sharper way to think about the anxiety. He also pushes back on the idea that AI is somehow limitless. Every disruptive technology, from electricity to the railways, eventually reaches an endpoint society decides on. AI will too.

Paul Roehrig is the founder and strategic leader who guided Ascendion's breakthrough as a powerhouse in AI-powered software engineering. 

An award-winning, best-selling author of Monster, What To Do When Machines Do Everything and Code Halos, he previously led strategy and growth for Cognizant Digital Business & Technology, founded the Center for the Future of Work, and was a principal analyst at Forrester Research. 

Inside you'll find…

• Why the fear around AI echoes the exact headlines that greeted electricity a century ago
• Paul's argument that AI is a mirror of us, and why blaming it misses the point
• Why every disruptive technology finds a natural ceiling, and what that means for the tension between economic value and public safety

Elizabeth Maxson has started noticing the tells. Beyond em dashes and "quotation marks," the certain phrases repeated a little too often. Leaders she's long admired, publishing content that no longer sounds like them. 

On this episode of Finite by Clarity, she makes the case that this matters more than most CMOs think, not because AI-assisted content is wrong, but because publishing without judgement, experience or voice quietly erodes trust.

Elizabeth is Chief Marketing Officer of Contentful, a digital experience platform trusted by more than 4,800 customers. Before Contentful, she was CMO at Tableau, a Salesforce company, and led Strategic Technology Partnerships marketing at Salesforce, launching relationships with AWS, Google Cloud, Alibaba and Apple.

In this episode, Jodi Norris sits down with Elizabeth to unpack how the buyer journey has changed shape, and why the instinct to produce more content is usually the wrong one. 

Elizabeth explains how cutting webinar output and being more selective on topics increased registrations and conversions, and how keeping personalisation deliberately simple, segmenting by audience type rather than complex micro-targeting, delivered a 195% increase in click-through rate.

Inside you'll find…

• Why the small, repeated tells of AI-generated content are quietly costing leaders their audience's trust
• Why "less is more" content strategies are outperforming high-frequency production
• How simple, broad-strokes personalisation is consistently outperforming complex micro-targeting

What if the biggest risk in marketing isn't failing, it's being too afraid to?

In this episode of the FINITE Podcast, Jodi Norris sits down with Amanda Cole, CMO at Bloomreach, to unpack why building a culture that tolerates, and even expects, failure has never mattered more. As AI reshapes how marketing teams operate, Amanda argues the old playbook no longer applies. Instead, the marketers who thrive will be the ones comfortable saying "that didn't work" and moving on fast.

The conversation explores what happens when decision-making shifts from humans to AI agents, why scale changes the stakes of every mistake, and why Amanda believes the real risk isn't moving too fast, but forgetting to bring your whole organisation along with you.

Amanda Cole has spent over 20 years building B2B marketing functions from the ground up, starting in direct mail and rising to CMO at Bloomreach, where she leads global marketing, technology partnerships and pipeline generation. Known for her candour and appetite for risk, she's built a reputation for pairing bold experimentation with hard-won lessons on leadership and change.

Inside you'll find…

• Why Amanda believes 80% of marketing doesn't work as intended, and why that's exactly the point
• How AI agents change the scale and speed of failure, and what "human in the loop" really means in practice
• The sunk cost trap every marketing leader falls into, and the discipline it takes to walk back before the finish line

As B2B technology companies scale, size often comes at the cost of agility. Processes calcify, buying cycles stretch, and marketing teams end up running up and down the stairs faster instead of building the elevator.

In this episode of the FINITE Podcast, Jodi Norris sits down with Carol Carpenter, CMO at Cohesity, to unpack what it really takes to market at enterprise scale without slowing down. 

Fresh from Cohesity’s merger with Veritas, Carol shares the realities of integrating two large marketing organisations, building trust across cultures, and holding on to startup-style velocity inside a 5,800‑person business.

She explains how her team uses AI to redesign workflows – from translation and brand governance tools, to AI‑powered SDR outreach that doubles lead‑to‑meeting conversion. Along the way, she draws a firm line between what can be automated and what cannot: creativity, taste and strategic judgement.

Carol has been in technology marketing for most of her career, starting as a product manager at Apple. She enjoys scaling and transforming companies and has done that in leadership roles at VMware, Google, Apple, Trend Micro and now as CMO of Cohesity. Carol gives back through mentorship programs such as the HBS Women Entrepreneurship program and Monte Jade, an AAPI professional organisation.

Inside you’ll find…

• How to merge marketing cultures without losing speed, trust or clarity
• Where AI genuinely shortens a six‑month enterprise buying journey – and where humans must stay in the loop
• A practical framework for lifting teams out of execution and into more strategic, high‑leverage work

We’ve got big news! 

Over the past six years we’ve convened inspiring conversations with some of the most exciting names and brands in B2B tech. From interviews and meetups to full-day conferences, the Finite brand has grown into a trusted space for thoughtful conversations in B2B tech.… and we couldn’t be prouder! 

You may be aware that throughout this journey we’ve been quietly backed by Clarity. Clarity is a senior-led global growth consultancy for technology brands that have outgrown agencies and fragmented partners. 

Now, as we continue to grow and evolve, we want to make it more clear just how large a role Clarity plays in Finite’s story. And so we are now…

Finite by Clarity. 

With a refreshed brand that reflects our growing ambitions, we’re able to bring higher quality content, exclusive podcast guests, and more insights to inspire your marketing strategy and career. 

The newsletter and podcast will continue as normal, and you can find the new home of Finite on Clarity’s website, where you can still access our library of content. 

We hope you’re as excited as we are for the new opportunities and horizons at Finite by Clarity. 

Connect with our host, Jodi on LinkedIn - she loves at chat! 

And check out the new home of Finite by Clarity for our library of episodes.

For high‑growth B2B tech brands, the next funding round or IPO is no longer just a financial milestone – it is a communications stress test. Investors are bringing AI‑driven tools, sharper scrutiny and higher expectations into every decision. The companies that win are those that can match strong numbers with a compelling, consistent story.

In this episode of the FINITE Podcast, Jodi Norris sits down with Liam McLaughlin, Managing Partner at Clarity Europe, to unpack how CMOs and marketing leaders can actively prepare for their next raise or listing through comms and marketing. They explore where tech investment is flowing today, why AI is fueling a renewed funding boom, and what it really takes to move from “interesting startup” to “serious international player” in the eyes of investors.

Liam breaks investor attraction down into three pillars: authenticity, narrative and AI visibility. He shares practical examples from an EV charging infrastructure client on the road to IPO, and a fintech brand using AI visibility programmes to show up consistently across search, executives, media and analysts – and, crucially, inside LLMs.

Liam has almost 20 years of integrated communications experience, working with global technology brands including Oracle, NetApp and EMC, as well as consumer names such as Canva, Clearscore and eBay. As Managing Partner of Clarity Europe, he has led communications strategies for brands navigating major funding rounds and public offerings across the UK and Europe.

Inside you’ll find…

• How to build an authentic, investor‑ready brand story that goes beyond “AI‑washing”
• A practical framework for aligning spokespeople, channels and proof points over a multi‑year funding journey
• Why AI visibility is now a core stakeholder in investor relations – and how to measure and optimise it

Many B2B technology brands are falling into the same trap: slapping the "AI-powered" label onto their solutions and hoping it acts as a differentiator. But when everyone claims the same capability, it becomes a baseline expectation rather than a competitive advantage. If your marketing feels like a constant uphill battle, the problem might not be your channels or tactics - it could be your foundational positioning.

In this episode of the Finite Podcast, Jodi Norris sits down with Matt Hodkinson to explore why positioning is the single most critical lever for sustainable commercial growth. They unpack the dangers of generic category labels, why simply caring more or having years of experience isn't enough to stand out, and how to build a commercial promise that deeply resonates with enterprise buyers. Matt explains why poor positioning is like a bad diet - no amount of marketing heavy lifting can outwork it.

Matt Hodkinson is the Co-Founder and CEO at Tylt, a specialist consultancy that helps technology firms and consultancies achieve category leadership. With a background in technology consulting and over a decade running a successful inbound marketing agency, Matt brings a unique, dual perspective to the structural challenges of go-to-market strategy. He now focuses entirely on helping businesses hone their differentiation and messaging to escape the sea of sameness. 

Inside you’ll find…

• Why treating AI as a differentiator is a critical mistake in today's homogeneous tech market.
• The difference between surface-level messaging and deep, structural category leadership.
• How to balance the need for search discoverability with the necessity of a polarising, standout brand identity.

After a trillion‑dollar sell‑off in software stocks and the so‑called “SaaSpocalypse”, it is not just founders who are nervous - CMOs and marketing leaders are questioning the future of their products and positioning.

In this episode of the FINITE Podcast we sit down with Antony Cousins, VP Product at Meltwater, to interrogate the death‑of‑SaaS narrative head‑on. They unpack how investor decks, agentic AI and vibe‑coded tools like Claude Cowork have fuelled the story that AI will replace subscriptions. 

Ant brings a rare perspective, combining a career in Ministry of Defence tech roles with frontline communications work in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Arab Spring, leadership in AI startups and now product leadership at Meltwater. He has spent the last decade at the intersection of AI, media intelligence and reputation.

If you are a B2B marketing leader wondering how AI will affect your revenue, this conversation will help you separate existential risk from lazy narrative – and design for growth, not just survival.

Inside you’ll find…

• Why “SaaS is dead” is an oversimplified narrative – and where AI agents and vibe‑coded tools genuinely threaten software.
• How data moats, long‑term memory and UX become the defensible edge in an AI‑native SaaS ecosystem.
• What CMOs and agencies should change now: commercial models, junior hiring and how they collaborate with software providers.