Christine Royston is the Chief Marketing Officer at Wrike, an intelligent work management platform that helps teams build, connect, automate, and scale workflows. She joined in June 2024 after more than 20 years in B2B enterprise marketing. Before Wrike, Christine was VP and Global Head of Marketing at Udemy, where she helped grow annual recurring revenue from $100M to over $450M and led initiatives including an IPO and rebrand. She also held leadership roles at Bitly, Dropbox, Imperva, and Salesforce.

In today’s marketing landscape, every dollar spent is under a microscope, and leaders are under pressure to prove impact faster than ever. How can CMOs align their budgets, metrics, and customer strategies to show real business value while navigating constant change?

According to Christine Royston, a seasoned B2B marketing leader with global experience, the key is balance. She emphasizes that marketing must be both data-driven and customer-focused, ensuring pipeline and bookings remain at the center of conversations with executives. She highlights how aligning budgets with measurable outcomes builds trust across the business and creates room for innovation. By focusing on efficiency, clear communication, and proactive performance tracking, marketing leaders can demonstrate value early and often.

In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, host Alex Gluz sits down with Christine Royston, Chief Marketing Officer at Wrike, to discuss how CMOs can align budgets, metrics, and customer value. She explains why data transparency builds stronger executive relationships, how to balance brand and demand generation, and the role of customer-centric thinking in growth. Christine also shares insights on adapting to AI-driven changes in marketing.

Usman Sheikh is the Founder and CEO of Agentive, a next-generation AI platform that helps B2B companies generate pipeline, identify quality leads, and accelerate sales outcomes. A serial entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, he specializes in building businesses at the intersection of AI and enterprise sales and marketing. Agentive envisions AI agents seamlessly collaborating to support revenue teams with a measurable, results-focused impact. This is Usman’s fourth startup, reflecting his deep experience in creating and scaling innovative technology ventures.

Too many sales teams struggle with missed quotas, inconsistent pipelines, and wasted hours on administrative tasks. Even with AI tools at their disposal, companies often see little improvement in outcomes. Is the problem with the technology or with how it’s being applied?

According to Usman Sheikh, a serial entrepreneur who has built multiple ventures at the intersection of AI and B2B sales, the core issue is that most companies use AI to replicate human tasks instead of reimagining entire sales processes. He highlights that focusing solely on task automation leads to fragmented workflows and lost opportunities, while an outcome-driven approach can transform the entire sales cycle. By building systems that integrate ideal customer profiling, opportunity identification, and daily recommendations, sales teams can spend more time engaging prospects and less time bogged down in admin work. This shift not only increases efficiency but also improves conversion rates and revenue predictability.

In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, host Alex Gluz sits down with Usman Sheikh, Founder and CEO of Agentive, to talk about fixing broken B2B sales workflows with AI-powered strategies. They explore why traditional sales processes fail, how to build and maintain a rolling pipeline, and ways AI can enhance sales performance without replacing human judgment. Usman also shares key KPIs for measuring the impact of AI in sales organizations.

Kristin Oelke is the Managing Director for Growth Services at Brightrose Ventures, an enterprise software advisory and investment firm that provides strategic guidance, fractional executive teams, and execution support to mid‑market business software companies. In 2024, her firm Green Street Advisors merged with Brightrose to expand its reach and deliver efficient, trust‑driven marketing capabilities to investors and management teams. At Brightrose, Kristin leads go‑to‑market advisory services and is the author of Trust: Unlocking B2B Growth in Today’s AI World.

Trust is the invisible force that drives B2B growth. But in an AI-driven world flooded with content, automation, and noise, earning that trust is more difficult than ever. How can companies prove their value and credibility when buyers are skeptical and overwhelmed by options?

According to Kristin Oelke, a B2B growth strategist and marketing expert, trust is built through validation — not volume. She highlights that companies struggling to move prospects through the funnel often lack the third-party proof, consistent messaging, and real-time feedback mechanisms that signal credibility. The result is a stalled pipeline, even when product-market fit exists. Kristin emphasizes that building a “public trust profile” is essential, especially in complex B2B sales, and that trust can only be earned when happy customers, aligned teams, and transparent data come together to support the brand promise.

In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, host Alex Gluz is joined by Kristin Oelke, Managing Director for Growth Services at Brightrose Ventures, to talk about why trust is more important than ever for growth in today’s AI-driven world. They discuss how companies can actively manage their public trust profile, align cross-functional teams around shared goals, and use AI without losing the human element. Kristin also shares insights on helping companies navigate strategic pivots.