#34 - Ara Kharazian

#34 - Ara Kharazian

Ara Kharazian is the lead economist at Ramp, where he uses the company’s spend data to produce original economic research. Because Ramp sees how thousands of companies are spending in real time, Ara is able to spot and explain patterns in where business is moving. He’s been especially focused on AI spending inside companies: how much businesses are actually spending on LLM tools, with which companies, and how those patterns are changing over time. Ara tells us all about how Ramp built its insights content motion, why first-party data can be such a powerful way to earn attention, and how he thinks about finding stories inside a company’s data set. We also get into how he built credibility with reporters and researchers, why Ramp makes parts of its data interactive and public, and what other companies should think about before trying to turn their own data into content.

#33 - Pranav Piyush

Pranav Piyush is the CEO of Paramark, a marketing measurement company helping brands cut through attribution noise and understand what is actually driving business results. Paramark works with companies on measurement fundamentals like marketing mix modeling and incrementality testing, bringing more scientific thinking to one of the messiest questions in marketing: how do we know if this is working? He tells us all about why traditional attribution models are mostly broken, what smaller teams should pay attention to before they have enough data for real measurement, and how marketers can think more scientifically without overcomplicating the work. We also get into why product and marketing are more connected than most companies realize, how he thinks about building Paramark’s own content program, and why the best content in the AI era has to come from real conversations, real experiences, and real life.

#32 - Barney O'Kelly

Barney O’Kelly leads product and solutions marketing at AlixPartners, a global consulting firm with thousands of employees and billions in revenue. Inside a firm like that, getting executives to show up on LinkedIn isn’t easy, but Barney has been a lone evangelist for this motion, helping hesitant leaders get out there, share their thinking, and build real relationships. He tells us all about how he introduced executive-led content internally, the resistance he faced, and how he reframed “personal brand” into something that actually resonated: be seen and make friends. He tells us all about the psychology behind why executives hesitate to post, how to get past the “I’m not interesting” hurdle, why engagement metrics are often misleading, and how this motion actually drives real conversations, relationships, and revenue. It’s a practical look at how executive presence can work inside a large, legacy firm, and what it actually takes to make it stick.

#31 - Richard van der Blom

Richard van der Blom has spent years studying LinkedIn more rigorously than almost anyone else. Every year, he and his team analyze more than 2 million LinkedIn posts and turn that data into his widely read Algorithm InSights Report. In this episode, we get into what he’s seeing on the platform right now, from declining reach to LinkedIn’s shift from network-based distribution to interest-based distribution, and what that means for anyone using LinkedIn as a serious growth channel. He tells us all about what “consumption rate” means for posts and videos, why overhauling your profile matters more than most people think, how Richard sees the balance between AI and authenticity on the platform, why there is still real opportunity on LinkedIn in 2026, and what creators and B2B operators should actually do if they want to earn attention, build authority, and turn that into pipeline.

#30 - Chris Eberhardt

Chris Eberhardt leads marketing at Clarify, a Series A CRM trying to break through in one of the most crowded software categories out there. Instead of chasing more channels and more volume, Clarify has focused on building trust around its founder, Patrick Thompson, and extending that voice beyond LinkedIn through a long-form executive newsletter. Chris tells us about how that newsletter, Founder Therapy, came together, why they built the audience from scratch instead of importing subscribers, what makes an executive newsletter work, and what they’ve learned so far about using long-form content to build trust with founders.