For TrueDialog, the Austin-based provider of enterprise-grade SMS messaging, growth isn’t just about adding customers—it’s about scaling the right way. This week, the company doubled down on that strategy by promoting Amanda McGuckin Hager to the dual role of Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer.

It’s a move that underscores the convergence of marketing and revenue operations in B2B tech, where brand building and bottom-line impact are increasingly inseparable.

A Seasoned Operator Steps Up

McGuckin Hager isn’t new to the C-suite. She joined TrueDialog in 2024 as CMO, quickly building high-performing teams and aligning go-to-market strategies for traction. Her résumé spans 25 years and both worlds: enterprise heavyweights like Dell, Rackspace, and SolarWinds, as well as venture-backed startups such as BlackLocus, Infochimps, and YouEarnedIt.

In short: she’s equally comfortable steering billion-dollar companies and scrappy scale-ups.

CEO John Wright summed it up plainly: “Amanda has made an incredibly positive impact in the 12 months since she joined. She knows how to align sales and marketing for rapid and sustainable success.”

That alignment is increasingly a competitive differentiator in martech—especially for companies like TrueDialog that operate in the crowded SMS and mobile engagement space, where customer acquisition costs can balloon without tight sales-marketing coordination.

Why the Dual Role Matters

The CMO-CRO hybrid role is gaining traction across B2B SaaS and martech firms. For companies competing in saturated categories—SMS marketing platforms, chatbots, and conversational AI—splitting marketing from revenue strategy can create silos. TrueDialog’s move puts McGuckin Hager at the center of end-to-end execution: from pipeline generation to closing deals to sustaining customer value.

It’s not just title inflation. As SMS continues to be one of the most direct, high-engagement channels in enterprise communication, the stakes are high. A fragmented go-to-market motion could mean missed opportunities in a market that’s increasingly about scale, security, and deliverability.

McGuckin Hager herself framed it in customer terms: “I relate to the need for TrueDialog to ensure that text messages are being delivered successfully, securely, and at scale.”

A Company on the Move

TrueDialog isn’t promoting in a vacuum—it’s been racking up wins across industry recognition lists:

• MarTech Breakthrough Awards 2025: Best Overall Conversational Marketing Company

• Digiday Technology Awards Finalist: Best Mobile Marketing Platform

• G2 Leader: Grid Leader and Momentum Leader in SMS Marketing

• Inc. 5000 Debut: One of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies

For a company competing with bigger names like Twilio, Sinch, and Bandwidth, these accolades provide proof points that TrueDialog is holding its ground—and carving out a reputation for customer-centric, enterprise-ready messaging.

New Leadership Bench Strength

The leadership shuffle doesn’t stop with McGuckin Hager. TrueDialog also announced three senior hires aimed at strengthening execution across customer success, marketing, and sales:

• Becky Banasik, VP of Customer Success (ex-TrendKite, DOSH)

• Erica Lanyon, VP of Marketing (ex-SailPoint, Eloqua, PlanView, SourceDay)

• Marc Vallido, Sales Leader (ex-8x8, Indeed, Rev.com)

Taken together, these appointments suggest a company gearing up not just for growth, but for scale. In enterprise SMS—where volume, compliance, and reliability separate the winners from the rest—that matters.

The Bigger Picture

The timing is significant. As enterprises reevaluate their customer engagement stacks, SMS remains a non-negotiable channel. Email still dominates for reach, but text messaging carries unmatched immediacy, often clocking open rates north of 90%.

That puts TrueDialog in a position to capitalize—but also under pressure to keep up with larger rivals that are layering AI, omnichannel orchestration, and compliance tooling into their platforms. The CMO-CRO appointment signals TrueDialog’s intent to punch above its weight by integrating growth strategy under one leader who knows both marketing psychology and revenue mechanics.

The takeaway: this isn’t just about promoting a proven leader. It’s about restructuring for the next chapter of martech, where speed, security, and unified execution will decide who wins in the noisy world of business-to-consumer messaging.

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Comcast is shuffling its leadership deck in the Midwest. The company has named Sonya Callahan regional vice president of residential sales and marketing for its Heartland Region, which spans Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky.

It’s a big role: Callahan will oversee Comcast’s direct and indirect sales channels, retail operations, and multi-family sales across a region that serves millions of residential and business customers.

A Familiar Face Steps In

Callahan isn’t a newcomer to the company—or the industry. She has nearly 25 years in telecommunications, with a decade at Comcast alone. Most recently, she served as regional VP of Comcast Business in the same Heartland Region, managing more than 200 employees and leading commercial sales, marketing, and operations.

Her resume is broad: before the business-side leadership role, she was senior director of Business Development for Comcast’s West Division, where she handled network expansion projects across 13 states. That mix of sales, operations, and engineering gives her a toolkit well-suited to balancing the demands of residential growth in a highly competitive broadband market.

Why It Matters

The Heartland Region is a strategic one for Comcast. With millions of households in three states, the region is a battleground for broadband, streaming bundles, and mobile add-ons—all areas where Comcast faces pressure from rivals like AT&T, Charter, and regional fiber upstarts.

Bringing in a leader with both enterprise and residential experience signals Comcast’s intent to unify sales execution across verticals while keeping a sharp focus on customer growth.

Regional SVP Kristee Cominiello put it bluntly: “Sonya’s deep industry expertise, strategic mindset, and passion for developing high-performing teams make her the ideal leader.”

Translation: Comcast expects her to not just steady the ship, but accelerate it.

Building on a Track Record

Callahan’s leadership has already delivered results on the business side. Now, she’ll be tasked with translating that success to the residential space, where customer acquisition and retention are both critical. With cable broadband growth slowing nationwide, providers like Comcast are leaning more heavily on bundling, retention offers, and value-added services such as home security and mobile plans.

That requires regional leaders who can execute across multiple channels, from door-to-door reps to retail stores to digital touchpoints. Callahan’s career trajectory—spanning sales, engineering, and network expansion—suggests she has the range to drive that kind of cross-channel strategy.

A Career of Leadership

Callahan holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Colorado State University and is a graduate of The WICT Network’s Rising Leaders Program, a professional development initiative for women in media and tech. That background underscores her blend of technical know-how and leadership development—a combination Comcast seems eager to leverage as competition intensifies.

The Bigger Picture

For Comcast, regional leadership changes like this are more than internal HR notes—they’re signals about where the company is placing its bets. As broadband competition heats up and cord-cutting accelerates, growth increasingly depends on regional execution: how well local teams convert prospects, bundle services, and support customers.

Callahan’s appointment shows Comcast isn’t just playing defense—it’s putting a seasoned operator with deep local knowledge in charge of one of its most contested markets.

The coming quarters will show whether that bet pays off.

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For marketers, the social media treadmill never slows down. Platforms emerge, formats evolve, algorithms shift, and the brands that can’t keep up get left behind. Later, a player long known for its influencer marketing and social media management tools, wants to change that pace by giving marketers a better grip on what’s next.

This week, the company unveiled a wave of new platform enhancements—from advanced analytics to competitive benchmarking—packaged inside a new quarterly showcase it’s calling The Drop. Think of it as Later’s version of an Apple keynote, but for marketers, where product teams spotlight new features and roadmap previews directly to customers.

Why This Matters

Social media management is already a crowded space—Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer each jostle for attention among SMBs, while enterprise players like Sprinklr dominate at scale. Later is carving out its edge by doubling down on simplicity for SMBs and creators while layering in competitive-level insights that bigger brands expect.

Nicki Seaborn, SVP and Head of Later Social, put it bluntly: “Social media is evolving rapidly and our customers need a partner that helps them navigate what’s next.”

With brands like Fashion Nova, Kylie Cosmetics, and ESPN using the platform, Later is betting its data-rich insights—drawn from millions of posts and conversations—can help customers not just manage social, but anticipate trends.

What’s New in The Drop

Among the new capabilities rolling out:

• Custom Analytics & Post Tagging: Flexible reporting across platforms, with less time wasted in spreadsheets.

• External Approval Workflow: A login-free way for clients and stakeholders to review and approve content before it goes live.

• Brand DNA: AI-driven insights that reveal engagement drivers, suggest creator partnerships, and uncover content opportunities.

• Competitive Benchmarking: Side-by-side metrics on engagement, follower growth, and posting activity against rivals.

• Threads and Snapchat Scheduling: Plan and publish to two of the fastest-growing platforms, alongside Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more.

• Best Time to Post Enhancements: Recommendations tailored to Instagram Reels, feed posts, and Stories.

• Social Inbox: A centralized hub for DMs and comments across platforms.

Each update tackles a friction point marketers have been grumbling about for years: too much manual reporting, approval bottlenecks, scattered engagement, and uncertainty around when to post.

The Bigger Picture

The Drop isn’t just about features—it’s about positioning. Later wants to be more than a scheduling app; it wants to be a predictive engine for social. Tools like Future Trends, powered by Later’s massive dataset, aim to help brands spot shifts before they go mainstream.

That’s no small ambition in an industry where TikTok trends can boom and bust in a week, and where Threads and Snapchat are fighting to stay relevant against the juggernaut that is Instagram.

For SMBs and creators, the value proposition is clear: spend less time managing complexity and more time making content that connects. For larger brands, The Drop signals that Later is serious about playing in the same league as its enterprise-focused rivals.

And in a year when “doing more with less” is the mantra across marketing teams, automation, insight, and agility aren’t just nice-to-haves—they’re survival tools.

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At its flagship K:BOS event, Klaviyo (NYSE: KVYO) took a bold step toward redefining customer relationship management for consumer brands. The company introduced its Marketing Agent and rolled out its Customer Agent to general availability, framing itself as an AI-first B2C CRM that unifies marketing, service, data, and analytics under one roof.

The move underscores Klaviyo’s ambition: to become the first autonomous CRM built for the AI era, offering brands more than just AI-powered tools — but a system that can run on autopilot while staying firmly within brand guardrails.

Marketing Agent: Creativity Meets Automation

For marketing teams stretched thin on budgets and bandwidth, Klaviyo’s Marketing Agent promises instant relief. The autonomous assistant can turn a URL into a full marketing plan in minutes, generating campaigns, flows, and content that’s on-brand by design.

Key features include:

• Instant Strategy: Generates a unique campaign or strategy in minutes.

• One-Click Launch: Campaigns are written, designed, and ready for approval.

• Trend-Aware Content: Continuously learns from industry, competitor, and seasonal trends.

• Always-On Ideas: Delivers four fresh campaign ideas weekly.

“Klaviyo isn’t just removing manual execution; it’s giving marketers a creative thought partner,” said Andrew Bialecki, Co-Founder and CEO. “It’s about turning vision into action and creativity into growth — all at the speed of AI.”

Customer Agent: Service and Marketing Converge

With 63% of consumers expecting AI shopping assistants to be standard by 2026 (per Klaviyo’s 2025 AI Shopping Index), the Customer Agent steps in as a 24/7 on-brand assistant. It handles everything from product recommendations and order tracking to returns, while escalating seamlessly to human agents when needed.

Embedded in Klaviyo’s CRM, it ensures service teams share the same data and context as marketing, turning conversations into conversions.

Capabilities include:

• Omnichannel Support: Chat, SMS, email, and soon WhatsApp.

• Personalized Shopping: Add-to-cart, apply promotions, complete purchases.

• Fast Setup: Auto-ingests storefronts and help docs for day-one readiness.

Beyond Agents: Platform Updates

Klaviyo also announced several new features, including:

• MCP Server for secure AI model connections (Claude, ChatGPT).

• Data Warehouse Import with Snowflake and BigQuery.

• AI Image Remix tool for creative teams.

• Expanded App Marketplace for prebuilt integrations.

• Omnichannel Attribution across Klaviyo and external platforms.

• Personalized Send Time (Beta) for optimized message delivery.

Conclusion

With Marketing Agent and Customer Agent at the core, Klaviyo isn’t just adding AI to its platform — it’s aiming to reimagine how B2C CRM should function in the AI-first era: autonomous, on-brand, and always learning.

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Springbot, the Atlanta-based AI-first marketing and sales automation platform, just made a bold play: it’s acquired Identity Matrix, a top-ranked visitor identification and attribution platform known for transforming anonymous clicks into named, high-intent prospects.

This isn’t a quiet tuck-in. It’s a doubling down on Springbot’s mission to give marketers sharper visibility into who’s actually behind the traffic, and how to convert them. Think of it as trading in night vision for X-ray specs.

Why It Matters

Identity Matrix has built its reputation on turning vague behavioral signals into actionable insights — identifying high-value buyers, reviving dead leads, and powering account-based marketing with precision. Folding that into Springbot’s AI-driven workflows gives the combined platform a much sharper edge in the increasingly crowded martech arms race.

With data privacy rules tightening and attribution headaches mounting, demand for accurate, first-party-centric identification tech has surged. Rival platforms like Clearbit, 6sense, and ZoomInfo have been muscling for dominance. Springbot’s move signals it wants to be more than competitive — it wants to be indispensable.

The Integration Playbook

Springbot isn’t just absorbing the tech; it’s bringing the people, too.

• Stephen Lowisz, Identity Matrix’s founder, joins as Managing Director of Data Ops and Interim CPO.

• Jean Hoffman and the engineering team plug into Springbot’s R&D, with Hoffman stepping in as Interim CTO.

• Clients gain instant access to Springbot Send (email, remarketing, abandoned-page workflows) and Springbot Studio (demand-gen and ABM playbooks).

CEO Marc Pickren framed the deal as a clear escalation: “Bringing Identity Matrix into Springbot doesn’t just expand our stack — it accelerates our mission to deliver measurable ROI through unified, intelligent marketing workflows.”

Lowisz was more blunt, calling the move “jet fuel” for innovation across demand gen, attribution, and customer journey orchestration.

The Bigger Picture

This marks Springbot’s third acquisition, reinforcing its profitable, debt-free, growth-at-all-costs strategy. While many martech firms are tightening belts or chasing profitability, Springbot is taking the opposite route: buy, integrate, and expand fast.

For marketers, the impact is tangible — fewer silos, better data enrichment, and campaign strategies that lean harder on AI and personalization. For competitors, it’s a warning shot that Springbot intends to scale beyond being another automation vendor into a fully unified growth engine.

The martech industry is consolidating quickly, but Springbot’s play is less about survival and more about sharpening its arsenal. If the integration lives up to its promise, marketers could soon have one of the most complete AI-driven marketing stacks on the market.

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Identity isn’t just a security concern anymore—it’s the beating heart of the global cybercrime economy. That’s the stark takeaway from a new report released by BeyondID, a KeyData Cyber company, which argues that usernames, passwords, tokens, and access rights have become the “currency of choice” for attackers.

The study, titled The Identity Economy: How Gaps in Identity Management Enable and Sustain Cybercrime, dives into how identity credentials now fuel everything from ransomware campaigns to AI-powered phishing operations. And while businesses pour billions into perimeter defenses, identity and access management (IAM) remains the weakest—and most exploited—link.

Identity Exploit Vectors: The New Attack Surface

The report introduces a chilling concept: Identity Exploit Vectors (IEVs)—systemic IAM weaknesses that hackers repeatedly leverage. These can be as simple as a misconfigured access policy or as subtle as an overlooked API token.

According to BeyondID, the numbers paint a grim picture:

• More than 90% of companies are impacted by credential theft.

• Stolen credential attacks linger for 10 months on average before detection.

• 60% of stolen credentials trace back to internal actors, often through accidental mistakes.

• AI tools are accelerating the threat, from ultra-convincing phishing campaigns to automated credential harvesting.

Financial services and healthcare remain prime targets, with U.S. hospitals reporting breaches involving 500+ patients nearly every business day.

“Identity Is the New Perimeter”

“Cybercrime once relied on brute force or network flaws, but now depends on identity,” said Arun Shrestha, CEO of BeyondID. “The stakes have never been higher, yet identity remains one of the most overlooked areas of cybersecurity investment. This report is a wake-up call.”

That wake-up call couldn’t come at a louder moment. The rise of AI in cyberattacks is making credential theft cheaper, faster, and harder to detect. Identity-first security—once considered a best practice—is fast becoming a survival necessity.

Industry Response and What’s Next

BeyondID isn’t just dropping research; it’s taking the message on the road. At Oktane 2025, Shrestha will join Laura Curtaccio, Head of Access Automation, Cybersecurity at Biogen, to discuss the findings and outline practical defenses. Their session will highlight how attackers are monetizing stolen credentials on a thriving black market, and how businesses can outpace these tactics with AI-powered defenses and stricter identity governance.

The broader industry context is clear: IAM is no longer a supporting player in cybersecurity. It’s the front line. And if BeyondID’s report is right, organizations that keep treating it as an afterthought may end up paying with far more than stolen passwords.

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SMS fraud is a $2.1 billion problem—and 8x8 thinks it has the fix. The cloud CX provider today rolled out Omni Shield Self-Service, a no-code tool designed to help businesses detect and block SMS fraud like Artificially Inflated Traffic (AIT) in real time.

Unlike traditional fraud defenses that require developers and delayed analysis, Omni Shield is built for business teams. The tool is embedded in 8x8 Connect and managed through an intuitive dashboard where users can spot anomalies, suspend suspicious traffic, and review live SMS performance trends—without touching a line of code.

“From e-commerce to banking, SMS is the backbone of digital engagement—and that makes it a growing target,” said Igor Mostovoy, Product Director, CPaaS at 8x8, Inc. “What used to take days now takes minutes—and that speed makes all the difference.”

Why It Matters: Fraud Moves Faster Than Businesses

In 2023, SMS fraud drained businesses of an estimated $2.1 billion, much of it tied to AIT schemes, phishing (smishing), and spoofing. With attackers scaling their operations globally, especially in mobile-first regions like Southeast Asia, traditional defenses often come too late to prevent financial or reputational damage.

Omni Shield flips the model by arming non-technical staff—marketing managers, operations leads, and security analysts—with real-time tools to stop fraud before costs balloon.

Features at a Glance

• Behavioral traffic analysis with live fraud alerts

• One-click blocking of risky operators or routes

• Auto-suspend controls to instantly halt bad traffic

• Real-time dashboards showing anomalies, conversion rates, and SMS health

Early Signals

According to 8x8, early adopters are already reporting significant reductions in AIT-related costs and stronger trust in SMS campaign performance. For industries like banking, logistics, and e-commerce, where SMS OTPs and confirmations drive daily engagement, the impact could be transformative.

8x8 isn’t the only vendor targeting SMS fraud, but by making its solution no-code and self-managed, it’s betting on accessibility and speed as the differentiators. In a channel where minutes can equal millions, that’s a compelling sell.

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StackAdapt, a leading advertising and marketing technology company, has expanded its revenue leadership team with the addition of Matt Phillips as SVP of Sales and Scott Bush as Head of Americas Client Services. Both executives bring experience from global heavyweights including Google, Amazon, Waze, Groupon, and Provi, signaling StackAdapt’s commitment to scaling client partnerships and accelerating growth across the Americas.

Driving Revenue with Experience

Phillips, with nearly two decades in revenue leadership, most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer at ShipSticks and spent nearly ten years at Google and Waze, where he led the global SMB Ads business. At StackAdapt, he will oversee brand-direct sales and vertical expansion, helping agencies and brands leverage the platform’s AI-powered, first-party data-driven solutions to drive measurable outcomes.

Bush brings deep experience in sales, account management, and go-to-market strategy, with previous leadership roles at Amazon Ads and Provi. At StackAdapt, he will lead the Americas Client Services organization, focusing on strengthening partnerships with agencies and brands across the US, Canada, and Latin America.

A Strategic Move in MarTech + AdTech

These hires come as StackAdapt continues to unify its martech and adtech capabilities under one platform. The company’s solutions span programmatic advertising, data activation, and dynamic creative optimization, enabling brands to connect first-party data with automated email and programmatic channels to deliver measurable results at scale.

“With Matt and Scott joining the team, we’re doubling down on our ability to drive impact for agencies and brands across the Americas,” said StackAdapt leadership. “Their expertise in revenue growth, client services, and data-driven marketing will help us accelerate adoption of our AI-powered platform.”

As advertisers demand tighter integration between first-party data, programmatic campaigns, and automated marketing tools, StackAdapt’s leadership expansion positions the company to compete more aggressively with other programmatic and martech platforms, including The Trade Desk, MediaMath, and Innovid.

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