Politely Pushy with Eric Chemi

As they say in the U.K., today’s episode of Politely Pushy would best be accompanied by a “cuppa.” That is because Jon Geater sits down with our host and speaks to us in the most elegant Queen’s English (the royal majesty’s accent, that is – no reference to that borough in New York). Jon discusses how complexities related to the supply chain can compromise trust and how his company developed technology to track physical and digital assets, ensuring traceability and helping organizations rest assured about their current products by having as much information on them as possible. This information can also help to avoid future breaches. Jon discusses how his company’s technology is an asset to today’s new “zero trust is a must” corporate culture, exactly what “traceability” entails, how blockchain technology fits into the mix and why “public attestation” is vital to trust in cybersecurity.  

Shekar Ayyar is a CEO committed to delivering the best network architecture for clients, the “plumbing” underneath their 5G architecture. Words like “inflation” and “recession” don’t scare him; he considers himself an eternal optimist committed to meeting the needs of companies that have to keep up with 5G networks. He founded Arrcus to enhance business efficiency through superior network connectivity. The company is committed to providing the best-in-class software with the most flexible consumption model at the lowest total cost of ownership. Hear from Shekar as he discusses how Arrcus is helping companies as they move into the multi-cloud networking space. He also explains how technology keeps advancing, so individuals have to skill themselves accordingly, and the benefits of Arrcus’s partnership with VMware, which allows for an end-to-end connection of what’s happening between data centers and the carrier. Using a pricing methodology so smaller companies can benefit from better network infrastructure as their larger counterparts do, Shekar is determined to meet the needs of all types of companies. 

Today we are joined by Stacy Quackenbush and Paige Dansinger, two women building “worlds” in the metaverse, providing people with the opportunity to learn and engage through virtual reality spaces. The metaverse hasn’t exactly gotten the greatest rep since Facebook changed its name. But Stacy and Paige explain how there is a lot of misinformation that abounds about this fascinating technological arena. They discuss how they’ve successfully created hundreds of worlds in the metaverse as partners in Dynamite Labs. Paige has even worked with children to build worlds for a museum that they then presented to the World Health Organization. Comprised of photo-realism and three-dimensional assets (which can include NFTs), these worlds give the user the opportunity for social engagement and education. Stacy and Paige explain what building those worlds entail, the difference between Web3 and Metaverse, and how the worlds they’ve built have led to immersive and interactive experiences. 

When an organization buys a product from a vendor, its journey does not end with the purchase. Instead, it has just begun. That’s because several steps must take place as the company onboards the product and it becomes a part of the business. Today, we are joined by Sri Ganesan, co-founder and CEO of Rocketlane, a purpose-built project delivery and collaboration software for client facing teams (i.e., implementation/onboarding teams, consulting firms, agencies). Sri and his team at Rocketlane want to ensure that the process from purchasing to fully deploying a new product cannot be categorized as “death by a thousand spreadsheets.” After witnessing customer onboarding challenges at his previous company Freshworks, he is determined to help run customer-facing projects better. In today’s episode, he discusses the importance of creating a first-of-its-kind shared workspace that unifies project task management, customer communication, and document collaboration and how technology that helps to understand customer sentiment improves customer relationship management, helping everyone stay on top of their tasks. Sri explains how he developed a platform that delivers insights to help with onboarding and assist teams with improving their processes, providing value faster for clients. He also discusses how conversational AI is an asset to the customer onboarding experience and how he sees a purpose-built system for customer onboarding as vital to organizations in the coming years. Tune in to hear his thoughts on why.  

Today’s guest is Ahmed Reza, who has quite an exciting story! Ahmed started his journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur as a child actor in Bangladesh. From there, he would become a Milken scholar at Cornell University while homeless, an engineer at NASA, and eventually a successful small business entrepreneur multiple times. Ahmed founded Yobi, where he now serves as CEO; it is a company that merges all the ways customers can communicate with small businesses into a straightforward app for excellent customer relationship management (CRM). He is also the intelligent man’s Forrest Gump who formed a close relationship with the man behind his scholarship, Michael Milken as a student and with Mark Zuckerberg’s dad Dr. Edward Zuckerberg while working at a dental start-up and dressed in a sumo suit at a convention. Yes, you read that correctly. Tune in to find out more about Ahmed’s intriguing and unconventional journey. Hear why he is so passionate about the 38 million small businesses in the U.S., why he is excited about transforming the customer experience for small businesses, and how AI has played a tremendous role in streamlining communications and making everything more seamless. We can guarantee that Ahmed is a guy you will want to know personally by the end of this episode.

Today’s guest had our host circling back, wondering how he could have begun the episode more fascinatingly. That is because Mario Juarez specializes in compellingly communicating messages as the founder and CEO of StoryCo. Companies seek Mario’s counsel on how to share their stories – their communications –  most effectively and transformatively. He discusses how strategic storytelling ultimately influences transactions (and whether anyone can be trained to lead an effective TED talk), the factors that make a powerful storyline and how much more engaged people are when they hear a story about how someone successfully overcame a challenge or adversity. Mario began his career as a journalist in Alaska and then worked at Microsoft for nearly 30 years. Some of his own fascinating stories include the time he and his friends set a picnic table on fire and how he created an underground newsletter as a boy scout. 

Today's guest is Rick Hammell, founder and CEO of Atlas. He has visited 117 countries, lived in Barcelona, and manages the most extensive direct employer of record (EOR) company with entities in over 160 countries. Rick discusses the idea behind Atlas, a tech platform supported by experts, delivering flexibility for companies to expand across borders, onboard talent, manage compliance and pay their global workforce without needing a local entity. Rick explains how his EOR competes in the marketplace, who their most significant competitor is, and the impact of an EOR in a remote work world for employees and employers. He also shares how companies can avoid the pitfalls of doing business globally and comply, following their countries' rules and regulations, so employees fully receive the benefits afforded to them.

Today’s guest is Lisa Bankston, an award-winning global strategist who works with companies to market products so that the messaging around them fits into cultural norms. This means she may modify imagery and branding, provide translation services, source vendors and materials, and all other things that help to create the marketing and market expansion plan for products in respective international markets. Lisa discusses how other countries’ tastes may be different than ours - quite literally giving the example of certain cookies being too sweet for Japanese taste buds. She will have you questioning the American palate and the whole way of marketing a company that translates to the English-speaking American audience but does not necessarily land overseas! Lisa also has a math mind and a way of making anything related to finance much more intriguing due to her experience as a banking intern. Do you want to learn some surprising things about international consumers you never knew? Tune in to this special episode.

Today we welcome Larissa (“Larz”) May to the podcast. Larz is the founder of #HalfTheStory, which began as a grassroots movement and led to a larger initiative and speaking opportunities about emotional well-being and the importance of self-care in an age of social media and an obsession with posting on platforms like Instagram and Tik Tok. Larz was named a “digital wellness activist” by major news outlets like Time, Forbes, Refinery29, Good Morning America, and NBC. Her community-building initiatives led to the world-renowned “Global Day of Unplugging,” an annual event held on August 6. Larz discusses own her mental health journey with our host and how it was the brainchild of #HalfTheStory. She talks about the thrills, the highs, and the lows of social media, and how all of it can feel just like jonesing for psychedelics and coming down from a beautiful place only to realize one’s dependence on the vapidness and superficiality that a false sense of security that Instagram “likes” creates. #HalfTheStory is now a more significant movement devoted to people sharing their stories, helping them unplug, and acknowledging that there’s more to life than social media acceptance and addiction. And that they can employ social media in productive rather than wasteful ways. Tune in to find out more about what that means! 

In this episode, we are joined by Karen Cage, the strategic marketing and partnership mastermind behind KLD Consulting. Karen focuses on helping organizations implement partnership strategies in a way that brings reciprocal value to them. She hails from Hewlett Packard where she served as the global lead in strategic brand partnerships, and she recently connected with our host when assisting Bospar Public Relations as the firm prepared to attend the Cannes Lions Festival in May. Karen explains to us what the world of strategic marketing partnerships entails and the difference between strategic partnerships and branding packages. Her day to day involves reputational partnership development and strategy, matching organizations with common values and complementary activities, and creating opportunities for organizations to share their stories and inspire other organizations. What exactly are reputational partnerships? And why are they so important in business? Tune in to be enlightened by today’s guest.