Business Model Innovation

Ep40—Steve Subar—Business Model First, Product Second: Thirty Years of Building Smarter

Ep 39—Neal Miller-Decades of Financial Strategy Across 70 Companies and Still Going

Neil Miller, a partner emeritus at Tech CXO with 19 years at the firm, shares his journey from public accounting through CFO roles at multiple public companies to fractional executive work. He discusses his involvement with 70+ companies including Cloud Sherpas and Boomtown, offering insights on fundraising challenges, the fractional executive model's value during economic uncertainty, and how AI is compressing business cycles while changing capital requirements.

Ep35 — Virginie Glaenzer: Rewriting the Rules: Growth, AI, Community, and the Meaning of Wealth

Virginie Glaenzer, a fractional CMO and author, shares her journey from Paris to Silicon Valley in 1998 with four suitcases and no English, building tech companies through the dot-com era. She discusses AI's transformative impact on business, the shift from scarcity-based to abundance-based thinking, and why future-proof brands must build communities into their DNA rather than treating them as marketing tactics.

Ep32 Joe Gruca—From Pink Slip to Pivot: Predictable Sales in Unpredictable Markets

Joe Gruca shares his journey from corporate VP of Sales at Computer Associates to co-founding Higher IQ, an AI-powered interview automation platform, after being laid off in 2008. He discusses pivoting the business model, raising venture capital, successfully exiting, and now helping early-stage tech CEOs as a fractional revenue leader at Tech CXO. The conversation covers sales methodology evolution, startup lessons, and navigating economic uncertainty.

Ep31 Mike Biwer—The Hidden Engine of the Economy: Unpacking the Power of Distribution with Cavallo

Mike Biwer, CEO of Cavalo, discusses how his company helps wholesale distributors optimize profitability through technology that controls pricing and margins at the line-item level. Founded by a distributor who built software to solve his own business problems, Cavalo evolved from a Microsoft Dynamics add-on to a multi-platform solution serving the $10 trillion distribution industry. Biwer shares insights on navigating ERP migrations, maintaining product-market fit, and competing in a fragmented market where average pre-tax profit margins are under 5%.

Ep30 Bob Brogan—Road Warrior to Business Architect: 40 Years of Transforming Companies

Bob Brogan shares four decades of experience transforming companies across operations, IT consulting, and strategy. From early data warehousing in Canada to leading a $100M exit for a 43-year-old online ordering pioneer, he discusses business cycles, modular design principles, and the transition from tactical execution to strategic leadership. Now managing partner at Tech CXO Great Lakes, he emphasizes paying forward through mentorship, angel investing, and community work including founding the Legacy Guild scholarship program.

Ep29 Teja Yenamandra—Beyond Resumes-The Case for Talent-First, Human-Centered Hiring

Ep24 Alan Gold—Sales, Marketing, and AI: How to Survive, Scale, and Avoid Stagnation

Alan Gold, a fractional CMO and sales consultant with 30+ years in technology marketing, discusses the evolving landscape of sales and marketing in the AI era. He covers M&A market dynamics, hiring and developing sales talent, the critical importance of strategy over tactics in marketing, and how companies can break through growth plateaus by finding adjacent markets and refining their differentiation.

Ep 13 - Marc McCarthy— Mastering Market Entry from Either Side of the Pond

Mark McCarthy, founder of Pro Consult IQ, discusses the complexities of cross-Atlantic business expansion for B2B software companies. He covers cultural differences in sales approaches, regulatory considerations across US states versus UK markets, and the critical importance of hiring locally and understanding regional business practices. McCarthy emphasizes that successful market entry requires more than language compatibility—it demands cultural adaptation, proper incorporation, local partnerships, and strategic timing for direct market presence.

Ep 10 - Chris Caparon: Hard-Won Lessons from a Long and Successful Tech Journey

Chris Caparon shares his 20-year journey building Sephoria Software, an accounts receivable automation company that grew from a garage startup in 2001 to serving Fortune 500 companies across 110 countries before its private equity exit. He discusses navigating multiple economic crises, evolving technology platforms, and the critical importance of customer-centric product development and maintaining strong founder relationships throughout the company lifecycle.

Ep 08 - David Morczinek: Machine Learning at MIT to Entrepreneurial Growth and Fundraising Success.

David Morczinek, CEO of Airworks, discusses his journey from aerospace engineering at Airbus to co-founding a geospatial AI company at MIT. He explains how Airworks uses computer vision to analyze aerial data from drones, satellites, and aircraft, pivoting from pure automation to a hybrid service model when customers struggled with AI adoption. The conversation covers fundraising progression from friends-and-family to private equity, balancing technical innovation with market readiness, and building a sustainable company culture.

Ep 02 - Lewis Goldman: Mastering Marketing Evolution in the Digital Age

Lewis Goldman, a growth marketing executive at TechCXO, discusses his career evolution from advertising psychology to digital transformation across major companies like CNBC, Citigroup, and MetLife. He shares lessons from the dot-com era, explains modern marketing channel strategies including Google's lower-funnel and Meta's upper-funnel approaches, and explores how AI is reshaping both targeting capabilities and content authenticity in an influencer-saturated market.