Marketing

Casey Foss

January 7, 2026 by

Casey is an expert at helping leadership teams develop, articulate and execute growth strategies, and helping clients capture value through emerging technologies. She spent more than 15 years at tech consultancy West Monroe, helping to guide the firm’s growth from $26 million to nearly $1 billion in revenue. Casey held multiple executive roles at West Monroe, including Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Commercial Officer, where she led everything from corporate and go-to-market strategy, to partnerships and customer experience, to IP and delivery innovation. She is an expert at bringing together multidisciplinary teams to design offerings that create value for companies, clients and their partners. Casey is passionate about mentoring future female leaders, supporting philanthropic causes including pancreatic cancer research, and serves on the board of Girls on the Run Chicago.

Why do you seek out high-growth, entrepreneurial organizations?

I thrive in fast-paced, nimble organizations that take a test-and-learn approach, and I appreciate leaders who are eager to challenge the status quo and fail fast. Entrepreneurs who have a growth mindset and who are willing to challenge their leadership teams to think differently about how to serve clients and empower their employees, are the ones who can create an organization that stands out and can have real impact.

You’ve had a significant impact on client growth at West Monroe. What is one lesson you have learned that you think is important for other services firms to consider in their growth journeys?

Today success requires blending physical and digital experiences, and using data to design something that is unique and drives real results. We talk a lot about how to create efficiencies through technology, but we can’t lose sight of the people who must engage with that technology and the processes to support it. This includes customers, partners and employees. Otherwise, it will be an expensive effort that doesn’t produce anticipated value.

When designing offerings or solutions, it’s important to start with the issue you’re trying to overcome and the desired outcomes, all through the lens of the industry in which you operate. Then it’s about handcrafting the right team, marrying multiple disciplines to design something that can be implemented and improved upon. That is the key to driving long-lasting, effective change within the organization.

In your 15+ years at West Monroe, you’ve seen the firm grow from $26M to nearly $1B. What do you think has contributed the most to the firm’s success and growth?

During my time at West Monroe, we evolved from a traditional tech consulting firm to a digital services firm and each evolution was special. But the bottom line is the biggest reason for our firm’s success is the people and reinforcing a culture of constant improvement. In a people business, employees have to understand the vision and strategy, but also their role in bringing it to life. We spent a lot of time making sure everyone felt empowered and accountable to make the strategy a reality.

Cathrine (Cathy) Jooste

June 5, 2025 by

Cathrine (Cathy) Jooste is a business leader with nearly 30 years of experience in consultative and technology-enabled services. She excels at scaling companies, optimizing operations, and driving digital transformation.

As the founder of Nuvidea Solutions, Cathy brings clarity and effectiveness to revenue generation strategies in an era of intelligent automation. She helps clients maximize cross-sell potential, streamline sales operations, and empower businesses to focus efforts on the right clients, offerings and markets. Her ability to blend analytical precision with strategic vision makes her a catalyst for transformation and value creation in today’s modern business environment.

Cathy previously served as President of Global Services at Computer Generated Solutions (CGS Inc) and as Chief Commercial Officer at Atento, where she spearheaded record-breaking growth and accelerated business modernization initiatives across both organizations. She has held executive leadership positions at DXC Technologies, Cognizant, Avanade and Accenture.

Cathy’s most meaningful role is at home in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she nurtures the brilliance of her teenage twin boys — future innovators with a deep passion for technology and environmental stewardship. Maybe with a slight Mothers bias? She’s a dedicated volunteer with the FIRST Robotics organization, championing hands-on learning and innovation in young minds.

Why are you passionate about helping leaders of IT services firms?

Helping leaders of IT services firms is deeply personal to me because I understand the immense challenges they face in balancing innovation, operational efficiency, and sustainable growth. After nearly three decades in the field, I’ve seen firsthand how rapidly evolving technologies force leaders to adapt, innovate and make bold, future-shaping decisions. I thrive on helping leaders cut through the noise, focus on what truly matters, and unlock their full potential.

Throughout your career, you’ve helped organizations scale and transform their customer experience strategies. What key lessons from that journey do you hope to pass along to the next generation of founders and leaders?

I am but a student in this journey, and the best advice that I can pass on is that which I have learned from those who came before me:

“The make up of a successful leader is only 20% vision and genius. The other 80% is stick-to-it-ness.” This advice has been a necessary reminder for me that it is not all fun, strategic planning and big moves. Sometimes it is a lot of number crunching, data analysis or just plain meetings to get through… and the moments of brilliance emerge after all the elbow grease has been expended.

“Go make mistakes, make many mistakes, just don’t make the same mistake twice”. This is a helpful reminder that you can only truly achieve greatness if you take risks. Facilitating an environment where your leaders are not afraid of owning their mistakes, is the mark of an evolved organization. Learning from those mistakes to achieve better every time is the mark of progress.

“Don’t lead from a perch, lead from within” – Ben Jooste, Proprietor of Co-Art Gallery and Picture Framing (aka my Father.) As a teenage immigrant in the USA, I was asked to oversee a couple of employees in our mom and pop family business as we completed our daily or weekly work items. I very quickly learned the value of servant leadership and earning the respect of those you work with. This lesson is always close to me, and I never ask my team to do things that I am not willing to do also.

Customer experience and outsourcing are evolving rapidly with technologies like AI. What do you believe are the biggest opportunities — and risks — for tech-enabled services firms in the next 3–5 years?

The next 3–5 years will be a defining era for tech-enabled services firms as AI continues to reshape customer experience and outsourcing. The top 3 opportunities I see for these firms are 1) using AI to deliver truly personalized interactions at scale that resonate and build loyalty; 2) letting AI handle the repetitive stuff to free up teams to focus on high-value, human centric work; and 3) using AI to create new services and revenue streams that go beyond traditional models.

On the flip side, the top 3 risks for firms in my view are 1) automating so much the lose the human touch and the trust required in these relationships; 2) hurting their brand and end up in legal trouble by ignoring data privacy and ethical concerns; and 3) becoming irrelevant by not keeping pace or upskilling their teams. AI is reshaping roles fast, and a lot of companies aren’t paying attention to the talent gaps.

Slow down to speed up. In fast-moving industries like ours, leaders often feel pressure to move quickly, react instantly and push forward at all costs. But the most transformative leaders pause, assess and align their teams before charging ahead.

Taking time to clarify priorities, listen deeply, and make strategic choices doesn’t slow progress – it accelerates it. Rushed decisions can lead to inefficiencies, misalignment, and wasted energy. But when leaders invest in thoughtful planning, purposeful execution, and adaptive course corrections, they create a foundation for sustainable, repeatable success.

Mike Epner

September 22, 2023 by

Mike has more than 25 years experience building and scaling professional services organizations, from early stage startups to global organizations. He has a gift for mentoring and motivating global teams, and has generated more than $1 billion in value across multiple services organizations. As the former President and COO of Traction on Demand, Mike grew the Salesforce consulting partner from 200 people to 1,500 people, overseeing sales, delivery and operations until the firm’s acquisition by Salesforce in April 2022. Prior to Traction, Mike was SVP of Consulting Services at Appirio, VP of Services at Borland, and CEO at TeraQuest Metrics. He has created deep partnerships with cloud pioneers like Salesforce, Google, and Workday, and is an accomplished photographer. He is on the board of the Texas Photographic Society and Zennify, a Salesforce and Databricks consultancy.

Why are you passionate about helping leaders of IT services firms?

One of the most gratifying aspects of being a leader is watching members of your team achieve things that they didn’t know were possible. When helping leaders in IT services firms, there are personal, economic and social achievements that can alter the course of many lives. For me, that is legacy – and why I do what I do.

You have a lot of experience as a leader, and a strong ability to mentor and motivate large teams. What factors are important when it comes to successfully leading large organizations?

Trust – a large team can immediately sense if your words don’t match reality. Building and maintaining trust in leaders and the team is paramount.
Communication – the “indirect network” becomes very important as companies exceed the 500 person mark. Leaders need to plan for this shift and change their approaches to recognize this – the founder-driven ways of influencing may no longer work.
Predictability – as a business scales, lots of things will change and leaders must alter course in response. Having real information when making these adjustments provides more certainty to decision making – and allows smart risk taking to capitalize on the opportunities that surface along the way.

What advice would you give founders who are just getting started in a highly competitive ecosystem?

Take the time to get the foundations that you will need to grow in place. These include your market differentiators, your economic models, your processes (sales, delivery, operations, etc.) and your strategies around people (who, where, key roles, etc.). Stay focused on what you will need as a business to establish ongoing advantages and evolve. The requirements of the company evolve every time you double your revenue and headcount.

Rich Lyons

September 22, 2023 by

Rich is an entrepreneur and growth expert with 30+ years of experience in IT, professional services and business development. Rich was the founder and CEO of Lyons Consulting Group (LYONSCG), a $50 million eCommerce digital agency and service provider that worked with global customers like GoPro, Patagonia, Herman Miller, and FootJoy. When LYONSCG was acquired by Capgemini in 2017, Rich went on to hold multiple roles across the company for the next four years. He served as EVP, Digital Commerce Experience Leader for North America, defined the firm’s global commerce go-to-market strategy, and led hyper-growth initiatives for Capgemini’s most important partners (Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, SAP, Adobe, Google and others) with the goal to grow $1B+ practices.

Rich now serves on advisory boards, and advises business leaders on how to improve sales processes and accountability. He holds an MBA from Northwestern University and founded the Lyons School of Transformational Business, teaching courses on sales, entrepreneurship, and leadership. He is currently finishing a book on Life Is Sales, has been married for over 30 years to his wife Dr. Gertrude Lyons, and is the proud father of two daughters.

Why are you passionate about helping leaders of IT services firms?

I’m passionate about helping others to not make the same mistakes that I made. Having worked since 1995 in IT services and eCommerce (Whittman-Hart, marchFIRST, divine, LYONSCG, Capgemini), I have seen a lot and have a great deal to share in terms of what was successful and what was not.

You founded the Lyons Consulting Group in 2003 as a digital commerce agency, and ultimately grew it to $50M+ before being acquired by CapGemini in 2017. How did your strategy evolve over those 14 years?

I had a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) to be a $50M IT consulting firm by the time I was 50. Before selling to Capgemini, we started as a staff aug firm, and we pivoted and changed strategy many times over the 14 years that I ran the company. We got into eCommerce in 2005 and became the first implementation partner of Dewandware, now Salesforce Commerce Cloud. We shed all of our other IT consulting services in 2009 during the financial crisis and focused on only eCommerce. We added full creative capabilities, digital marketing/digital strategy, Magento (now Adobe) and Hybris (now SAP) as other platforms, and expanded internationally.

M&A in services isn’t easy, but Lyons Consulting Group has been a successful acquisition by CapGemini. What advice would you give to founders to help ensure a smooth integration for the team and customers?

My intention was never to sell, but the market changed rapidly. When we decided it was time to consider selling, we looked at both strategic acquirers and PE firms. It’s important to know the culture you’re going into, where you fit, what the future looks like to the best of your ability, and to ensure that your customers and employees will be well taken care of after the transition.

When it comes to a successful integration, communication is KEY – early and often, with clients and employees. We visited all of the customers that we could, and reached out to the others with phone calls. We held all-company meetings for the announcement, with many follow-up meetings to answer questions. Through all these, we tried to reassure our customers and our employees how they could benefit from the acquisition. For customers, it meant access to additional offerings and services. For employees, it meant additional training and other resources and opportunities that only a larger company could offer.

With more than 30 years of sales, alliance and business development experience, you’ve seen a lot. What are the biggest mistakes that services companies make when scaling sales?

Hiring saviors is the biggest mistake I see services companies make. Be sure to vet new hires, especially sales managers. I am a firm believer in metrics, so I believe that metrics and activity tracking should be a part of every sales compensation plan. Also, Alliances can be a huge channel for sales and leads – don’t undervalue this channel. And don’t undervalue a good alliance manager who knows the ecosystem.

Companies looking for that next phase of growth often decide to “go up market”, but it’s not always easy. What are the biggest challenges sales teams face when trying to break into and win business in the enterprise?

I always wanted to serve the whole market, so I believe it is a natural progression. Get happy clients and references in the midmarket. This will naturally lead to larger clients in the enterprise space. The key is happy, satisfied customers. Earn the right to be in the enterprise space. Everyone likes to hear a story with measurable results. Sales teams need to learn to tell these stories, with the results and benefits.

Latané Conant

March 29, 2022 by

Latané Conant is the Chief Revenue Officer of 6sense, a RevTech leader that’s seen annual triple digit growth under Latane’s leadership and was recently valued at $5.2 billion. Prior to joining 6sense, Latané was the Global CMO and GM of Americas for Appirio, where she repositioned the company from cloud computing to customer experience, supported global expansion and helped pivot the company to verticalized selling. She has literally written the book on how to use data and insights to drive predictable revenue growth in B2B businesses, and is the founder of CMO Coffee Talk, a 2,000-person community of marketing leaders. Her background in product and services sales, combined with her unique experience in accounting, e-commerce, CRM and HR tech is not the typical CMO background. But then again, there’s nothing typical about Latané.

Why do you think marketing is such a critical function in people-based, services businesses?

Often CMOs underestimate their role in defining, developing, and maintaining a great culture. Brands build from the inside and manifest outward, which is why marketing must be very intentional about company strategy and culture. In a service based business this is EVEN more critical for differentiation and margin.

A lot of early stage companies struggle with establishing a solid GTM strategy and plan. What advice would you give to founders in this area?

First, find a category. Customers, partners, analysts, investors, and employees need to put you in context. You may not be an exact category fit, but this is where positioning comes in. Without an existing category, it’s going to be a long, expensive road. And being a category of one doesn’t help.

Second, use data to identify patterns in the market. Look at intent data to see what keywords and ecosystems are trending. Find a segment where you can differentiate and win, and then expand.

Third, before you hire a huge expensive sales team, test your hypothesis, adjust and test again. You need to understand your clear and defensible differentiators. Once you do, train the entire company (not just your sales team) on them.

Finally, don’t go it alone. Understand the extended ecosystem of what people buy around your offering. Develop meaningful and focused partnerships.

When it comes to B2B marketing strategies, you often say that in-market is the new inbound. Why do you think inbound marketing is dead, and how can companies get started with Account Based Marketing?

Demand generation and inbound marketing was born in the 1990s. For the next 20+ years, marketing produced content and interested buyers filled out a form with their email address to get it. Marketing then emailed them until they took a meeting. It worked pretty well then. Not so much now. Today there is a ton of great content available to buyers. It’s easy to get lost in the noise and if you make it too hard to get, buyers will simply go elsewhere. It’s also inefficient. You have no idea whether that “lead” is an ideal fit for what you’re selling, whether they’re ready to buy, or who else is involved in the buying process.

This is why so many companies are moving to Account Based Marketing, focusing less on leads and more on accounts and people, using the digital breadcrumbs out there to find buyers who are truly in-market. This requires an understanding of anonymous web activity (e.g. activity on your own website, research being conducted on other sites, activity on review sites like G2, etc.), which requires certain tools and skillsets. We’ve found when people move to this approach they have 2X bigger average contract values, 20% better win rates, and 30% better cycle times. If you wait for an inbound lead, it’s probably too late.

As a CMO, if you’re looking to build out a marketing organization, where would you start first? What would be your first 5 hires?

I think you simply hire the 5 best people you have ever worked with and the rest works out. A’s hire A’s…B’s hire C’s. So make sure you have A players on your team to start and build around them.

You’ve run large, growth-focused marketing organizations for both product and services firms. Is there a difference in terms of where marketing should focus and/or what kind of marketing leaders they need?

It’s a very different investment profile! Service margins are usually smaller, which means the percentage of revenue spent on sales and marketing is typically lower in a services company. This means you have to be more efficient with your spend, and sales and marketing alignment becomes more critical. Sales and marketing need to share the same world view on the overall bow tie funnel (acquisition through expansion) and jointly identify where and how to invest. Marketing dollars can take longer to generate results, but are typically more sustainable and programmatic.

Marketing directly to your channel partners also becomes more important. Software providers create categories and they invest in the top of the funnel / market education. As a services partner, your job is to reinforce how successful customers will be using the product and enable the channel sellers, which requires great sales enablement and top notch customer marketing.

While services marketing leaders may have different priorities, budgets, org structures and programs than product leaders, the role of the CMO is still the same. They are the Chief Market Officer, and they have to understand the market better than anyone else. This is why the best CMOs focus on data, market insights, customer experience, customer marketing & building communities.

Beth Torrie

November 9, 2021 by

Beth is the founder of Torrie Communications, a firm specializing in analyst relations, positioning & messaging, as well as customer-centric marketing. Beth has spent 20 years in technology, helping companies large and small differentiate and grow their business. With 5 successful exits under her belt, Beth has a reputation for transitioning goals into results. She specializes in using customer-driven differentiation, market research, industry analysts and upstream influencer programs to fine tune and amplify the right messaging and increase revenue. You can listen to her podcast about analyst relations here.

Why are you passionate about helping services businesses?

Services organizations have unique challenges in that they need to differentiate on their people, expertise, certifications, support and services. Many times, minor tweaks to packaging and positioning can make a big difference in revenue without major investments.

You have been working with industry analysts for 20+ years, building analyst relations programs inside organizations and now as a consultancy. When is the right time to start a formal analyst program, and how should companies measure success?

Analyst Relations programs are resource intensive in terms of research contracts and executive time. It is important to start when you can answer the most important questions: Who is your ideal client and why? What do you offer that no one else does? Can you share five customer success stories that highlight your differentiators?

Where do you think companies go wrong when it comes to getting a better return on their analyst investments?

Research contracts are very expensive; I see a ton of folks simply not using them, or not using them enough to justify the costs. If your organization purchases a research contract, the value of that contract needs to be justified on a regular basis. It’s also really important to identify the goal of the research relationship. Is it influence, learning or both? And then to make sure every interaction is working to meet one of those goals.

How do you help your clients work with analysts to become a more frequently recommended vendor?

When analysts hear a well-honed value proposition, they connect that value with problems they hear in the market. Analysts speak with hundreds (or more) clients who need vendors to help them. The first step is to create a clear, carefully constructed differentiated message to help the analysts understand how your services help your clients. When you share that message, plus a great roadmap and customer references who can back it all up, you’ll have the attention of the analyst. Analysts genuinely want to connect end user clients with vendors who are going to help solve problems. Then it’s a matter of engaging those analysts in a consistent and collaborative way that influences their agenda and perspective on you and the market.

You’ve built customer reference programs for a number of companies over the years. Where should companies start when it comes to building a program like this?

Any company looking to grow will need references for sales, investors, partners, analysts, press and more. It’s important to have a centralized source of who the best customers are, their status, their NPS (even anecdotally), transparency and reporting for the requests the organization is making for each reference, and if possible, the results of those reference calls. Customer reference programs take a unique level of organization and communication, but it starts with assigning an owner, and it should be someone senior. There should be a discussion at the C-level at least every month to monitor this topic.

Marketing

Why are you passionate about helping leaders of IT services firms?

Throughout your career, you’ve helped organizations scale and transform their customer experience strategies. What key lessons from that journey do you hope to pass along to the next generation of founders and leaders?

Customer experience and outsourcing are evolving rapidly with technologies like AI. What do you believe are the biggest opportunities — and risks — for tech-enabled services firms in the next 3–5 years?

What’s one piece of unconventional advice you often share with leaders that has had a big impact on their growth?

What advice would you give founders who are just getting started in a highly competitive ecosystem?

Why are you passionate about helping leaders of IT services firms?

You founded the Lyons Consulting Group in 2003 as a digital commerce agency, and ultimately grew it to $50M+ before being acquired by CapGemini in 2017. How did your strategy evolve over those 14 years?

M&A in services isn’t easy, but Lyons Consulting Group has been a successful acquisition by CapGemini. What advice would you give to founders to help ensure a smooth integration for the team and customers?

With more than 30 years of sales, alliance and business development experience, you’ve seen a lot. What are the biggest mistakes that services companies make when scaling sales?

Companies looking for that next phase of growth often decide to “go up market”, but it’s not always easy. What are the biggest challenges sales teams face when trying to break into and win business in the enterprise?

Why do you think marketing is such a critical function in people-based, services businesses?

A lot of early stage companies struggle with establishing a solid GTM strategy and plan. What advice would you give to founders in this area?

When it comes to B2B marketing strategies, you often say that in-market is the new inbound. Why do you think inbound marketing is dead, and how can companies get started with Account Based Marketing?

As a CMO, if you’re looking to build out a marketing organization, where would you start first? What would be your first 5 hires?

You’ve run large, growth-focused marketing organizations for both product and services firms. Is there a difference in terms of where marketing should focus and/or what kind of marketing leaders they need?

Why are you passionate about helping services businesses?

You have been working with industry analysts for 20+ years, building analyst relations programs inside organizations and now as a consultancy. When is the right time to start a formal analyst program, and how should companies measure success?

Where do you think companies go wrong when it comes to getting a better return on their analyst investments?

How do you help your clients work with analysts to become a more frequently recommended vendor?