This new Axwell ID feels like the song of the Summer 😮‍💨

Ecosystem advantage does not come from better strategy. It comes from better intelligence. The gap between partnership leaders who are winning and everyone else is not a strategy gap. It is a network gap. The ones pulling ahead are in better conversations, earlier. They know what is working before it becomes obvious because they are already in those conversations. Partnership Leaders spent months traveling across North America and Europe running Catalyst Summits to surface the most innovative professionals in the industry. 30 of them take the stage in New York. 70 Power Circles. 12 workshops. Frameworks you can run the following week. The agenda is live. The people you need to know will be there. Tickets are $849. Prices go up in June. 👉 joincatalyst.com/agenda-cata… New York City. August 25 and 26. #Catalyst26 #Partnerships #AI #Ecosystems

Nearly half of the founders of billion-dollar tech startups are immigrants

Charles Koch shares his framework for building great partnerships. Shared Vision Shared Values Complimentary Capabilities

Great partnerships have a lot in common with moms: They tell you when you’re wrong, support you anyway, and somehow keep everything from falling apart. This Mother’s Day, here’s to the women who mastered relationship management long before the rest of us made it a business strategy. Happy Mother’s Day!

Many executives think ecosystems are the moat. They are wrong. The moat is the institution that can continuously regenerate the ecosystem. (( Big difference 👀 )) Because partnerships alone are easy to copy now. Integrations get cloned. Marketplace listings get replicated. AI compresses product differentiation every quarter. Everyone can announce partners. Very few companies can sustain ecosystem gravity for decades. Why? Because ecosystems are not built on relationships alone. They are built on aligned incentives, distributed authority, and organizational design. That is why some ecosystems compound… while others collapse under their own politics. Look at the winners. Microsoft. AWS. Salesforce. Apple. Shopify. Their ecosystems became moats because thousands of companies could make money inside them. Developers built careers there. Partners built businesses there. Consultants built service lines there. Customers operationalized entire workflows around them. The ecosystem worked because the institution underneath kept reinforcing the economics. That is the real game. And most companies still completely misunderstand it. They say: “Partnerships are strategic.” Then: underfund ecosystem teams centralize decision making separate partnerships from product optimize for sourced revenue only trap cross functional work in approvals treat customer proximity as low status Then they wonder why the ecosystem never compounds. Here’s the truth: You cannot build a durable ecosystem on top of a fragile institution. And yes… most partnership teams today are still optimized for optics instead of institutional leverage. That is the uncomfortable part. The best ecosystem leaders are not managing alliances. They are designing systems that: align incentives across companies move customer intelligence into strategy distribute trust at scale reduce coordination costs accelerate decision velocity create economic gravity for partners That is not relationship management. That is institutional infrastructure. This becomes even more important in AI. Because the walls between: product distribution infrastructure partnerships workflows are collapsing in real time. Ecosystem strategy is becoming company strategy. The companies winning right now understand something critical: The people closest to customers, partners, and workflow reality need more authority, not less. Because the moat is no longer just software. The moat is the institution’s ability to continuously reorganize around ecosystem feedback faster than competitors can copy it. That is why partnership leaders should be getting: bigger budgets more strategic influence tighter product alignment stronger operational authority Not because partnerships are “important.” Because ecosystems are now operational infrastructure for how modern companies compound. The ecosystem is visible. The institution underneath is what compounds.

🔗 Secure your spot for the webinar here: link.partnershipleaders.com/…

Aspiring and current marketing leaders will both enjoy this one open.spotify.com/episode/4qL…

AI was supposed to be a product story. It is becoming a distribution story. In Episode 47, we break down how AI is reshaping services companies and forcing new operating models across the market. Brendan Tolleson, CEO of RevPartners joins the pod to share this pov on AI-native agencies. We cover: • Anthropic launching a marketplace and $100M partner fund • Why frontier AI companies are going partner first from day one • The rise of smaller, AI native services firms driving real innovation • New data showing most AI adoption is still internal, not customer facing • Why events are becoming one of the highest ROI GTM channels again • How services firms are evolving from delivery to product and IP • The blurring line between services companies and software companies • Why CEO turnover is rising in the middle of this shift Companies discussed: @AnthropicAI, @HubSpot, @Accenture, @blackstone, @thomsonreuters. P.S. For early stage founders, Brendan and I also share lessons from building bootstrapped (aka revenue-backed) companies. Apple: lnkd.in/ghDMP2wJ Spotify: lnkd.in/gKWQeVzj

Tomorrow, we’re hosting the launch webinar for the Ecosystem Compass 2026. This is our latest look at where real partner opportunity is emerging across today’s tech ecosystems and what the data is actually showing. @XOptimiser will be joined by Penny Byron (@_BridgePartners ), Margaret Adam (@SAP ), and Bruce Petillo (@Microsoft ) to break it down. They’ll cover: • What’s driving win rates • Where deal size and velocity are improving • How ecosystems across hyperscalers, SIs, and ISVs are evolving • What partnership leaders should be prioritizing next This session will give a clear view of where to double down in 2026. March 26 9 AM PT | 12 PM ET | 5 PM UK We’ll also share full report access. 🔗 Save your seat for the Ecosystem Compass 2026 launch: link.partnershipleaders.com/…

Catalyst is one of the few rooms where you can immediately tell who’s leaning in on partnerships. The leaders committing early aren’t passive attendees. They’re already thinking about where partnerships are going and what they need to build next. You’ll see heads of partnerships, GTM leaders, and operators comparing notes on what’s actually working. That’s what changes the conversation. Instead of surface level networking, people are talking through real problems they’re trying to solve together. 🗓 August 25–26 📍 New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge 🎟 Secure your spot here: link.joincatalyst.com/asher-…

AI was supposed to reduce work. It is doing the opposite. In Episode 46, we break down why AI is increasing the pace, scope, and expectations of work across every company. Shailesh Powdwal (VP, Partnerships at Forsys Inc) joins the pod to unpack what this shift means for services firms (SIs, Agencies, Advisory firms). We cover: • Research showing AI is intensifying work, not reducing it • Anthropic’s momentum and what it signals for the AI market • HubSpot and Salesforce reshaping partner programs for an AI first world • McKinsey’s shift toward agents and new operating models • How services firms are moving from time based to outcome based work • Why hardware demand is rising with AI adoption • CEOs stepping in as Chief AI Officers • Why partnerships must shift to owning AI driven revenue The takeaway is simple. AI is not an efficiency story. It is a performance escalation. Companies are not doing less. They are being asked to do more, faster, with higher expectations. Companies discussed: Anthropic, HubSpot, Salesforce, McKinsey & Company, Sandisk. P.S. The biggest shift we are seeing is not in tools. It is in expectations. Apple: lnkd.in/gc5MYWQd Spotify: lnkd.in/g-3Z2AkT

Something interesting is happening in deals right now. In the past week I spoke with four services companies. Each told me the same thing. Customers are asking for the partner manager to join deal calls. Why? Because the deal no longer involves just one vendor. There are multiple companies delivering the outcome: • The platform • The services partner • The software (think app) partner • Sometimes even the data or AI provider Customers want someone coordinating the ecosystem. Not just selling the product. That role is increasingly falling to the partnerships team. If this trend continues, it changes how we think about partnerships. Partner managers are no longer behind the scenes. They are becoming the orchestrators of multi-party deals. (I know James Hodgkinson will love this one). I am curious if others are seeing this too. Are customers asking for partnerships teams to be present in complex deals? Pre-Close? Post-Sale?

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