#books for #Summertime. Pleased to share that my book "Ascend Your Start-Up" hit #3 on @WallStreetJour1 best seller list. Get a copy here and dive into the knowledge I have gathered from over 15 years of hands-on experience: amzn.to/3qous8M #startups #GrowthHacking #VC

What does customer experience look like when the era of guesswork is over? At @Cisco Live, the conversation went beyond technology to transformation. The era of guesswork in customer experience is over. At Cisco Live, I spoke with Carlos Pereira, Cisco Fellow & Chief Architect for CX, to talk about what "agentic speed" really means for enterprise leaders: → From visibility to action → From reactive ops to resilient systems → From pilots to production What separates leaders from laggards right now? Courage. Watch the full conversation 👇 youtu.be/ai7EU8hIkqs #CiscoLive #CiscoPartner #CustomerExperience #CX

Best part of #PegaWorld? The Innovation Hub getting hands-on with @pega Infinity Studio, building my own blueprint. Innovation hits different when you're the one creating it. #PegaWorld26 #PegaPartner

Is your AI infrastructure ready for the agentic era? At Cisco Live, I connected with Gordon Macintosh and Dale Tucker from @Equinix to explore how the Secure AI Factory ecosystem is building the physical and interconnection foundations that make agentic AI at scale possible. Three thing leaders are still overlooking: → Distributed infrastructure. Production AI = multiple agents, tools, data sources, and policies → Data gravity is real. Sovereignty, regulation, and sensitivity shape where AI can run. → Last mile connectivity is where strategies stall. Secure, predictable, low-latency connections aren't optional at production scale. The @Cisco @nvidia @Equinix reference architecture is one of the most concrete answers I've seen with Equinix as the neutral landing zone across 280 data centers worldwide. As Dale put it: "Last mile connectivity is where AI strategy can either accelerate or stall." The companies that win the next phase of AI will be the ones who got the infrastructure and the ecosystem right. Watch our full conversation here: youtu.be/6eJP5WnVS8Q #CiscoLive #SecureAIFactory #EquinixPartner #CiscoPartner

One CIO burned their entire AI token budget in Q1. That was the opening gut punch at #PegaWorld today. Here are my 3 takeaways from Day 1: 1️⃣Token reality check with @pega CEO Alan Trefler: Most architectures assume tokens are free. That's a design flaw. Pega's approach → spend at design time, reuse workflows, minimize runtime cost. Predictable AI spend by design. 2️⃣The "muffin moment" with @pega CPO Kerim Akgonul: AI drew a muffin with dog ears instead of his dog… Then generated a perfect face just not his. AI is confident, not always correct. Funny in demos. Risky in production. Confidence without traceability = liability at scale. 3️⃣Legacy, redefined (@AWS @pega): The bottleneck is understanding. AWS Transform Pega Blueprint: 3 hrs assess → 3 wks POC → 3 mos production. Speed is table stakes. Engineered reliability is the moat. Check out this 40-second video that captured these moments. #EnterpriseAI #PegaInfinity26 #PegaPartner

Frontier AI models like Mythos can find 7x more vulnerabilities. Bad actors can weaponize a patch in 30 minutes. Our recovery plan was built for a different world. @Commvault's 4-step resilience framework helps organizations close the gap before an incident hits: 1️⃣Evaluate recovery risks 2️⃣Air-gap & isolate critical data 3️⃣Prioritize must-have systems 4️⃣Automate & test continuously Resilience is an operating requirement. Learn more: readiverse.com/blogs/what-my… #CyberResilience #ResOps #Cybersecurity #CommvaultPartner

AI agents generate 450% more network traffic than humans. Multiply that by always-on, machine-speed execution. Most enterprise networks were never built for this. @Cisco declared that the Networking SuperCycle is here. And the agent swarm already has an off switch. #CiscoLive #Networking #Cybersecurity #AI #CiscoPartner

Are you protecting your core or building your future? Most companies are only doing one. I joined Stephen Humphrey of @PTC on the Wired In series to talk about what ambidextrous leadership looks like in electronics and high tech, where product cycles can be obsolete in 18 months and the margin for error is shrinking every quarter. Full conversation linked below. ▶️ youtube.com/watch?v=RBfkdruy… My newsletter goes deeper. linkedin.com/posts/yuhelenyu… #Innovation #Leadership #Electronics #HighTech #DigitalTransformation #PTCPartner

Is your billing process costing you more than just time? As a business owner, every hour lost to billing chaos is revenue left on the table. I hired help last year. Still spent hours briefing, chasing, double-checking. These bottlenecks are only getting worse. As AI and agentic commerce change how companies monetize, legacy systems simply can’t support complex, real-time usage models. Billing shouldn't slow your growth. It should fuel it. @airwallex just launched Billing, one platform for invoicing, subscriptions, usage metering, payments & reconciliation. More time closing deals. Less time fixing tools. 👉 airwallex.sjv.io/yZb1A3 #AirwallexPartner #Finance #CFO #SMB #Entrepreneurs

What does HR agentic moment look like in practice? In my conversation with Rinky Karthik from @SAP SuccessFactors, we unpacked what SAP Sapphire’s agentic AI announcements could mean for HR leaders, practitioners, and the employees they serve. We talked about payroll, skills, learning in the flow of work, and why the future of HR is less about more tools and more about better outcomes. Our full conversation: youtu.be/_tlp3SWmD90 or SAP Sapphire On Demand: url.sap/j2s4cx #SAPSapphire #AutonomousHCM #AgenticAI #SAPSuccessFactors #SAPPartner

Is your back office slowing down SMB growth? Most SMB finance teams don’t have a strategy problem; they have a friction problem. Close takes too long. Expenses require too many follow-ups. Cash visibility lags decisions. Many systems add process instead of removing work. 👉Read the latest CXO Spice newsletter where I shared examples of SMBs fixing this by turning the back offic into operational infrastructure. linkedin.com/pulse/back-offi… Or sign up for your account at Bill- bill.com/?utm_medium=paid-me… #BillPartner #Finance #CFO

What does it take to lead securely in an AI-driven world? 87% of CFOs think they’re secure. Most aren’t. At the @Microsoft AI Tour, I spoke with Chris Tignor (former CISO) about the governance gap. Security = foundation for AI, not a blocker. Watch our conversation: youtu.be/xpgDEhbQts4 Or read my key takeaways: linkedin.com/pulse/frontier-… #MicrosoftAITour #MicrosoftAmbassador

One of my favorite moments at @IBM Think 2026 was the Analyst AMA with Chairman & CEO @ArvindKrishna; unfiltered, direct, and a conversation that cuts through the noise. Is your enterprise running AI at its core or just at its margins? Just published my #IBMThink recap. The big shift: infrastructure is now the real battleground for business value. What CIOs and tech leaders need to hear: ✅Treat AI as a connected operating model versus pilot portfolio. ✅Invest in data plumbing, governance, and cost controls before scaling agents. ✅Position quantum as a domain-specialized accelerator within hybrid pipelines. ✅Partner intentionally. Neutral orchestration beats vendor lock-in every time. Full recap → linkedin.com/pulse/ibm-think… #Think2026 #IBMPartner #AI #Quantum @IBMPartners #CIOs #CTOs

What happens when enterprise AI evolves from “systems of record” to “systems of action”? #IBMPartner That’s the real story behind the @IBM @Google Cloud partnership. At IBM Think, I spoke with Karan Sachdeva about: → WatsonX on Google Cloud Marketplace → OpenShift-enabled AI portability → HashiCorp-powered governance and security → IBM Orchestrate Gemini integration Enterprises are building operational frameworks for autonomous AI agents. Governance, interoperability, and trust become more important than the models themselves. Watch the full conversation: youtu.be/ow3CUOqSw4A #IBMPartner #IBMThink @IBMPartners

1 in 3 organizations breached last year. Fewer than 1 in 4 have a password manager. 74% lack complete identity visibility. This is a governance failure. Just published State of Workforce Password Security 2026 with 3,322 responses across 9 regions in collaboration with @Zoho. Identity risk is still not being managed as a core control surface. Full report → zoho.to/WPS2026 Watch my conversation with Chandramouli Dorai, Chief Evangelist at @Zoho → youtu.be/voJRLvbIdK4 #CyberSecurity #IdentitySecurity #BoardGovernance #ZohoPartner

What does generative transformation look like beyond adopting AI tools? It’s not more pilots. It’s not more tools. It’s building a system that compounds value. At @IBM Think, a few takeaways from my conversation with Blue Polaris: → A clear “North Star” that aligns every AI initiative → Governance and trust as prerequisites → 10x ROI means nothing if you can’t scale → A shift from one-off projects to scalable platforms And the underrated edge? Community. The IBM Partner ecosystem is accelerating learning in real time. Generative transformation is a discipline. Watch our full conversation: youtu.be/K9ug7xUHgDE #IBMPartner #Think26 #IBMPartnerPlus #BluePolaris

What does it mean to scale a team when part of your workforce is digital labor? #Sponsored At @salesforce TDX, I sat down with Brandon Metcalf, CEO of @Asymbl_Inc, and what he shared challenged the assumption that growth is tied to headcount. Asymbl hired 116 people in 100 days with just two human recruiters. They processed 17,000 applications. And they ended up with lower attrition than most traditional hiring cycles produce. Today their workforce is 60% digital and they're scaling toward 1,000 digital workers, powered by Agentforce and anchored in Salesforce's security and reliability. Here is what that shift demands of leaders: ➡️ Less managing effort, more orchestrating outcomes ➡️ Less adding headcount, more multiplying capability ➡️ Less deploying software, more onboarding teammates The hardest part was belief in a different way of working, and the willingness to design for it before the rest of the world catches up. 👉 Watch our conversation here: youtu.be/QmytkRQF8Nw #salesforcepartner #TDX26

What signals that a company is getting AI transformation right? I asked Tracie Larson, VP and GM of Customer Success, US Financial Services of @Microsoft at #MicrosoftAITour Atlanta. Her answer: ✅ Executive sponsorship with intent ✅ Governance built in from day one ✅ AI fluency at every level ✅ An AI center of excellence I'd add a fifth: customer-back design. As Pam Maynard OBE said: "The most important ingredients in any AI solution are intelligence and trust." Frontier firms amplify human ambition. That's the standard. ▶ Watch my full conversation with Tracie: youtu.be/6LrKzqJJgT0 ▶ Read the Microsoft AI Powered Sales eBook: info.microsoft.com/ww-landin… #FrontierFirm #AITransformation #MicrosoftAITour #MicrosoftAmbassodor #FinancialServices #CROs

Where will the future of AI-led business be built? Last year at #PegaWorld I caught up with @Pega's CPO @pegakerim right after his keynote. This year I'm back and hosting two special guests on #CXOSpice. The lesson that resonates: AI has two jobs. • Design time → be creative, prototype fast • Run time → be deterministic, auditable, predictable Most orgs miss that line. That's the difference between AI hype and AI that works. @pegakerim is back on the keynote stage at #PegaWorld 2026 (June 7–9, Las Vegas) with leaders from MetLife, Wells Fargo, Unum, AWS & Cognizant. 100K sq ft of live demos. 200 hands-on experiences. Full satisfaction guarantee; attend 2 days or your money back $2K travel. $200 off until May 1 → code TRANSFORM26 Registration: pega.com/events/pegaworld PegaWorld is where Agentic AI gets real. Let’s experience it together. #AgenticAI #EnterpriseAI #AI #PegaWorld #PegaPartner

What separates companies that transform in the agentic era from those simply upgrade tech stack? At Salesforce TDX, I spoke with Raju Malhotra, @CertiniaInc about this shift from systems of record → intelligence → execution. Having been both a solution architect at Oracle and a Chief Customer Officer, I’ve lived the gap between knowing what to do and being able to act in real time. Agentic AI is starting to close that gap. Systems are no longer just advising decisions; they’re beginning to execute them. Watch the full conversation: youtu.be/ZOUajZTXZ-g Learn more about @Certinia Veda: bit.ly/41LImp6 #Agentforce #Veda #CertiniaPartner #TDX26

Is your enterprise AI strategy sitting on a broken foundation? At #GoogleCloudNext, I spoke with Alan Bivens, VP of Strategic Partnership at @IBM about their partnership with @GoogleCloudTech. This is infrastructure finally catching up to AI. Watch our conversation: youtu.be/6o_iRPwaXeY Learn more about the strategic partnership : bit.ly/4sKSpWl (google.com/url?q=https:/…) #EnterpriseAI #HybridCloud #AgenticAI #IBMPartner #watson @ibmconsulting