The Change Alchemist

This isn’t manifestation—it’s probability.

In this episode of The Change Alchemist, I’m joined by İpek (pronounced E-pek), founder of The Born Method™—a data-driven guidance system that blends mathematics, behavioral patterns, and ancient wisdom rooted in birth dates.

Raised in Turkey, İpek grew up surrounded by this work as her mother developed what became The Mathematical System of Life, using numbers to guide everything from relationships to major life decisions. Drawn to numbers herself, İpek earned a master’s degree in Economics from Columbia University and spent over a decade in education, impact investing, and data strategy—helping direct $8M in funding to reach more than 2 million students, and earning recognition as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.

Today, İpek carries forward her family’s legacy through The Born Method™, bringing a modern, probability-based lens to personal and professional decision-making. Rather than predicting the future, the method reveals patterns in timing, relationships, and growth—offering practical, actionable guidance for founders, leaders, families, and anyone navigating change.

This is where logic meets legacy.
Where numbers stop being abstract—and start feeling personal.

Website: https://www.thebornmethod.com/our-story

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ipekgray/

Why do most products fail? Tony Ulwick, CEO of Strategyn and pioneer of Jobs-to-be-Done theory, shares how his experience with IBM's billion-dollar PC Junior flop sparked a 30-year obsession with innovation. Discover Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI), a proven framework that helps companies create winning products by focusing on the metrics customers actually use to measure success—not features, not guesses, but real customer needs.

Tony Bio:Tcony is the pioneer of Jobs-to-be-Done Theory, the inventor of the Outcome-Driven Innovation® (ODI) process, and the founder of strategy and innovation consulting firm Strategyn. Tony has applied his ODI process at some of the world’s leading companies and across nearly all industries to inform breakthrough innovations—achieving a success rate that is 5 times better than the industry average. Philip Kotler calls Tony “the Deming of innovation” and credits him with bringing predictability to innovation. Published in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review, Tony is also the author of best sellers What Customers Want and cJOBS TO BE DONE: Theory to Practice. 

Connect with him at strategyn.com or at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyulwick/

In this episode, I sit down with Alina Vandenberghe, co-founder and co-CEO of Chili Piper. Alina shares her journey on scaling Chili Piper into a category-defining platform trusted by some of the world’s fastest-growing organizations.

We dive into:

• How to design products that feel truly agentic and human-centric

• Lessons learned in building and scaling a global SaaS company

• The role of AI in creating seamless, personalized customer journeys

• Why culture and leadership are as critical as product innovation

• Advice for marketers and founders navigating today’s fast-changing tech landscape

Whether you’re a product marketer, founder, or tech enthusiast, Alina’s insights will inspire you to think differently about growth, customer engagement, and the future of product.

Sangram Vajre is currently CEO and founder of GTM Partners,  a data-driven analyst firm advising companies on their go-to-market strategies. Sangram was also the co-founder and CMO at Terminus and is the author of Account-Based Marketing for Dummies, MOVE and ABM is B2B. Previously, Vajre was head of marketing at Pardot. He has a master's degree in computer science from the University of Alabama.

In this episode Sangram and I talk about:

- The 7 Different GTM motions for a company and why figuring out your primary and secondary GTM motions are important

- Key GTM Metrics

- Skillsets for marketers

- Why NRR is becoming increasingly important as a metric in 2023

- Evolving role of the CEO and CMO

Key people referenced in the podcast:

Brian Halligan, Co-Founder at Hubspot

Yamini Rangan, CEO at Hubspot

Anthony Kennada, Co-Founder and CEO at AudiencePlus

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sangramvajre/

Jeff Schwartz is the VP of Insights and Impact at Gloat. He is the also the author of WORK DISRUPTED (Wiley 2021) and the forthcoming WORKFORCE ECOSYSTEMS (MIT Press 2023) and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School.

Gloat Research on the Great Resignation 2.0

Orchestrating Workforce Ecosystems:  Highlights from MIT-SMR and Deloitte’s 3rd Annual Study of the Workforce    In this podcast, you will learn about - How to future-proof your career

 - Trends in future of work

 - How to use the great assessment to evaluate work models 

- Journey to 2030: A Human Agenda(Deloitte Research) 

- Workforce ecosystems

Anthony Kennada is Co-Founder and CEO at Audience Plus. He was the founding CMO of Gainsight where he is credited with creating the Customer Success category  along with his team-- a novel business imperative, profession and software category that helps subscription companies grow sustainably by becoming customer is epic. He has also been the CMO of incredible companies like Hopin and Front.

By focusing on human first community building, content marketing, live events and creative activations, we developed a new playbook for B2B marketing that built the Gainsight brand and fueled the company’s growth from $0 to $100M+ ARR, and eventual acquisition by Vista Equity at a $1.1B valuation.

He also published his marketing playbook at Gainsight with Wiley in 2019 in a book titled Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love. The book debuted as a number one new release on Amazon.

He has also previously worked at Box, LiveOffice and Symantec, and serve as an investor, advisor and board member to enterprise software startups around the globe.

In this episode, listeners will:

- Understand the basics of category creation

- What's next in category creation

- Why every company should think like a media company

- Is a marketer born or made?

Other References

Geoffrey Moore, Crossing The Chasm:  https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/cvO61IFFRwb

Eddie Yoon, Category Creation: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/EUy63TPFRwb

Useful links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/

Twitter: @akennada

Category Creation: https://tinyurl.com/ycxu4c3y

David Allen is an author, consultant, and Founder of the David Allen Company. He is widely recognized as the world's leading authority on GTD(Getting Things Done) a system of personal and organizational productivity. His thirty years of pioneering research, coaching and education of some of the world's highest-performing professionals, corporations and institutions, has earned him Forbes' recognition as one of the top five executive coaches in the United States, and as one of the "Top 100 thought leaders" by Leadership magazine. Fast Company hailed David Allen "One of the world's most influential thinkers" in the arena of personal productivity, for his outstanding programs and writing on time and stress management, and his groundbreaking methodologies in management and executive peak performance. Time Magazine labeled his first book, Getting Things Done as "the defining self-help business book of the decade."

David Allen is the author of three books; the international bestseller, Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity ("GTD" as the method is popularly known), Ready for Anything, and Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life. Getting Things Done has been a perennial business bestseller since it's publication in 2001, and is now published in 28 languages.

Getting Things Done has spawned an international movement of devoted adopters from executives, techies, soldiers, entrepreneurs, university professors, musicians, students and the clergy. It has given rise to a thriving "GTD" industry of web sites, blogs and software applications. Internet searches bring up tens of millions of references.

In this episode, he talks candidly about his own journey, and how anyone can become productive.

Links: 

Website: https://gettingthingsdone.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidallengtd/

YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxhjDPKfbY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ETZJSXK7zs&t=2s

Dr. Zoe Chance is a writer, teacher, researcher, and climate philanthropist obsessed with the topic of interpersonal influence.

Powerful concepts that you will learn in this podcast:

- The Magic Question

- Gator and Judge Thinking

- The Power of No

Dr. Zoe Chance earned her doctorate in behavioral science from Harvard and now teaches “Mastering Influence and Persuasion,” the most popular course at Yale School of Management. Her research has been published in top academic journals and covered in global media. Zoe speaks internationally for Fortune 500 firms and leading NGOs, and gave a popular TEDx talk, How to Make a Behavior Addictive. Her framework for behavior change is the foundation for Google’s global food policy that helps over 100,000 people make healthier choices every day. Before focusing on academic pursuits, she also managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand for Mattel.

Here’s why what she has to say should matter to you: Zoe teaches smart, kind people to raise money for charity, get elected to political office, fund startups, start movements, save lives, find love, negotiate great deals and job offers, and even get along better with their kids. In other words, she helps people to use their superpower of influence as a force for good.

Rita McGrath is a best-selling author, sought-after speaker, and longtime professor at Columbia Business School. As one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth, Rita’s work is regularly published in the Harvard Business Review. She is consistently ranked among the Top 10 management thinkers in the world and was ranked #1 for strategy by Thinkers50.  Rita is the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Her most recent book is Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin

In this episode Rita McGrath talks about the importance of inflection points in business and why they are even more relevant in today's world.

What you will take away from this podcast:

As a leader: 

As an individual contributor:

My favorite quote from the podcast is from Steve Blank - "The answers are never in the building"

Leaders mentioned in this podcast:

Books Referenced: 

Only The Paranoid Survive - Andy Grove

The End of Competitive Advantage: Rita McGrath

Seeing Around Corners: How to spot inflection points in business before they happen

Rita's Book Recommendations:

Smart Growth - Whitney Johnson

Arriving Today - Christopher Mims

Winning The Right Game - Ron Adner

Links:

Company: www.valize.com

Learning Hub: https://learninghub.valize.com/

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ritamcgrath

Check out her weekly Thoughtsparks

Twitter: @rgmcgrath