In this episode of Growth Talks, Tatiana Birgisson, COO at Serval, the AI-native enterprise service management platform, joins host Krystina Rubino to unpack the mental models that have carried her from founding a beverage company out of her dorm room to scaling go-to-market at Rippling to building an entire function from scratch in a category that barely exists yet.

Tatiana breaks down her "stacked S curves" framework for sustaining growth, explains why executional excellence is the only way to know when a channel is really fizzling out, and shares how Serval discovered it had less than 1% visibility in LLM search results—and what they did to fix it.

🗝️ Key Takeaways:

• Growth isn't one curve, it's many. The best growth leaders launch the next channel before the current one peaks—waiting for the metrics to soften means you're already too late.

• Executional excellence comes before diagnosis. You can't tell if a channel is truly maturing until you've ruled out that you're just running it poorly.

• LLM visibility is the new SEO. Serval found they had under 1% visibility for their core terms in AI search tools—and treated it as a wake-up call, not a footnote.

• Management is changing. Fewer standing meetings, fewer layers, more "super ICs"—the best managers are still doing the hardest work themselves, not just coordinating it.

• Judgment beats hours. In an AI-native world, the edge goes to whoever can spot the highest-priority problem and apply exceptional taste—a skill Tatiana has seen consistently in parents.

⏰ Timestamps

00:00 Introduction with Krystina Rubino
01:25 From Founder to Operator: Lessons from Mati Energy
06:58 Building Rippling's Cross-Sell Function from Scratch
14:54 The Stacked S Curve Model, Explained
17:41 Knowing When a Channel Is Really Peaking
20:37 Defending New Bets to a Skeptical CFO
22:50 Why Serval Bet on LLM Search Over Google
30:22 The A/B Test
37:24 Unlearning "Professional Management"
44:42 GTM Strategy that Cuts through the AI Noise
46:49 Why Parents Make Great Operators in the AI Era
55:09 Tatiana's Favorite Growth Non-Hack

🔗 Mentioned in this episode:
Serval: https://www.getserval.com/
Rippling: https://www.rippling.com/

We'll be dropping episodes every other week. Want to follow along and listen to new episodes when they're released? Subscribe to Growth Talks on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode of Growth Talks, Nikki Jackson, Head of Demand Generation at Gusto, joins host Krystina Rubino to share how she's spent the past year building AI fluency across her entire team—from scrappy, self-taught agent building to structured Learning Days and quarterly OKRs. Nikki breaks down exactly how she got a whole demand gen team comfortable experimenting, failing, and sharing in public, and why that discomfort is the real unlock.

Nikki also digs into how she measures the ROI of AI adoption, how she's using Claude as a "second brain" to move faster with data, and why staying customer-first and authentic matters more than ever in a world full of AI-generated noise. She closes with a candid take on women, AI, and marketing leadership—and why nobody actually has it all figured out.

🗝️ Key Takeaways:

• Lean into the uncomfortable. Real AI fluency comes from hands-on building and failing in public—not waiting until you feel ready.

• Structure accelerates adoption. Dedicated AI Learning Days, IT/security onboarding, and quarterly agent-building OKRs turned curiosity into consistent team-wide progress.

• ROI isn't as fuzzy as it feels. Time savings and efficiency gains from AI agents can be tracked concretely—don't let "it's hard to measure" become a blocker.

• AI is a second brain, not a replacement. Conversational access to data frees up strategic time and elevates conversations with analysts instead of eliminating them.

• Authenticity is the differentiator. As AI content scales, a distinct voice and point of view—especially for women in marketing—become the real competitive edge.

⏰ Timestamps

00:00 Meet Nikki Jackson: Building AI Fluency at Gusto

01:02 How Nikki's AI Journey Started

03:34 Structuring a Team-Wide AI Rollout

07:24 Clearing IT and Security Hurdles

08:46 AI Learning Days in Action

09:56 Quarterly Agent-Building OKRs

12:07 Measuring the ROI of AI Fluency

16:10 Building a Prioritization Rubric with AI

19:04 AI as a Second Brain for Data

23:27 The A/B Test: Nikki's Quick-Fire Round

29:42 Women, AI, and Marketing Leadership

34:57 Staying Authentic Amid AI Slop

39:40 Marketing to Busy SMB Owners

44:44 Brand Storytelling at Gusto

46:16 Creating Demand Before the Search Begins

50:48 Nikki's Favorite Growth Non-Hack

🔗 Mentioned in this episode:

Gusto: https://gusto.com/

We'll be dropping episodes every other week. Want to follow along and listen to new episodes when they're released? Subscribe to Growth Talks on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

As you look ahead to 2026, what's rising to the top of your marketing priorities?

In this special episode of Growth Talks with Krystina Rubino, we highlight our favorite CMO insights on building brands that customers trust and love.

It's packed with insights on subjects all CMOs should be thinking about today, such as brand versus performance marketing, incorporating AI into your marketing strategy, and how to build and enable your team.

🗝️Key Takeaways:

• Tamara Mendelsohn, COO at Overstory and former CMO at Eventbrite, shares why brand and performance aren't competing priorities and how real growth comes from bringing both teams together.
• Jaleh Bisharat, former fractional CMO at Skillshare, argues that the best CMOs think like CEOs, focusing on what the business truly needs, even if that means reallocating budget away from marketing.
• Katelyn Watson, CMO at Talkspace, recommends that leaders step into an AI-native mindset and rethink how teams create, connect, and scale brands.
• Aaron Magness, CMO at Full Glass Wine Co., highlights why effective marketing leaders should stop obsessing over tactics and instead focus on hiring great talent, setting clear expectations, and deeply understanding the business and its narrative.
• Cate Lochead, CMO at Bentley Systems, shares how leading with empathy creates more authentic campaigns and builds deeper connections with customers.
• Matt Gehring, CMO & Advisor, details how clear data definitions such as clarity around LTR versus LTV keep teams aligned and focused on the metrics that matter.

⏰ Timestamps

• 00:42: Tamara Mendehlson
• 04:21: Jaleh Bisharat
• 06:09: Katelyn Watson
• 08:41: Aaron Magness
• 10:30: Cate Lochead
• 13:09: Matt Gehring

🔗 Mentioned in this episode:

• Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/
• Skillshare: https://www.skillshare.com
• Talkspace: https://www.talkspace.com/
• Full Glass Co: https://www.fullglass.wine/
• Bentley Systems: https://www.bentley.com/

👍 Did you enjoy this video? Don't forget to click the like button! And find more episodes of Growth Talks here: https://bit.ly/3xXGJJc

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