The CMO Who Never Becomes Obsolete

Dec 17, 2025

Michelle Huff, CMO of Alteryx, has a rich background across various tech eras, from web startups to SaaS and AI. She discusses the vital role of curiosity in staying relevant amid industry changes. Michelle emphasizes that AI should be seen as a tool for automating human judgment rather than mere task automation. She shares insights on building a marketing culture that encourages experimentation and how Alteryx successfully engaged a 700,000-strong community. Don't miss her tips on standing out in the crowded AI market!

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ADVICE

Stay Relevant By Volunteering To Learn

Volunteer to roll up your sleeves and try new technical tasks to stay relevant in fast-changing tech industries.
Pair curiosity with focus so experiments serve real customer value rather than trendy pursuits.

ANECDOTE

Career Through Web, Cloud, SaaS, And Data

Michelle Huff described her career from early web startups to Oracle, Salesforce, Act-On, UserTesting and Alteryx to show adaptability across tech waves.
She uses those varied experiences to ground marketing in product, data, and user feedback.

ADVICE

Make Experimentation A Team Habit

Build a culture where teams can experiment by carving out planning time and showcasing experiments at all-hands.
Celebrate failed experiments for their learnings and reflect on why things didn't work.

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The most future-ready marketing leaders aren’t the ones chasing trends… they’re the ones who can reinvent themselves every time the industry changes.

Michelle Huff, Chief Marketing Officer at Alteryx, joins Marketing Trends to break down the mindset that kept her relevant through every major tech revolution, from Web1 to cloud, SaaS, PLG, and now AI. She explains how to balance curiosity with focus, why AI is really about automating judgment (not just tasks), and how she’s redesigning her marketing org around agents, automation, and new workflows.

Michelle also shares early results from Alteryx’s AI experiments, how she’s rebuilding a 700,000-person community, and why great leaders still start with the end user even as their buyer audiences expand.

Key Moments:

00:00 – How to Stay Relevant Through Every Tech Shift

03:42 – A Career Spanning Web1, Cloud, SaaS, and AI

06:58 – Curiosity Is the Ultimate Career Advantage

10:12 – When Leaders Should Tinker and When to Delegate

13:28 – Building a Marketing Culture That Experiments

16:41 – Why AI Is About Judgment, Not Just Automation

20:07 – Inside an AI-Powered SDR Outbound Workflow

23:34 – Do AI Agents Replace People or Elevate Them

26:58 – Upskilling Teams in an AI-Driven Organization

30:17 – Why Most AI Content Fails to Break Through

33:36 – How to Stand Out in a Noisy B2B Market

36:52 – Why Enterprise Brands Lose Touch With End Users

39:48 – How Alteryx Built a 700,000-Person Community

43:06 – Turning Community Into Competition and Learning

46:32 – Early AI Wins That Drive Real Pipeline Impact

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