Persado, a leader in AI-driven content compliance and performance solutions, will spotlight its latest innovation, Marketing Compliance AI, at FinovateFall 2025 in New York City. President and Co-founder Assaf Baciu will join executives from Ally Financial, Cornerstone Advisors, TRAC.vc, and Wells Fargo in a “Power Panel” discussion on harnessing AI, GenAI, and Agentic AI for financial services.

Persado’s Marketing Compliance AI blends MarTech and RegTech to automate the creation of compliant, high-performing customer communications. The solution identifies regulatory risks, accelerates legal reviews by 90%, and shortens campaign cycles by 80%, enabling banks and credit unions to get to market faster and more efficiently.

The product is also a finalist for The Finovate Awards, which celebrate groundbreaking fintech innovations. Winners will be announced on September 9 during the conference.

The panel, moderated by Alloy Labs CEO Jason Henrichs, will explore the most impactful AI opportunities for financial institutions, strategies for responsible AI deployment, and why now is the moment to lean into AI.

Eight of the 10 largest U.S. banks already use Persado’s platform to deliver compliant, personalized content across email, web, SMS, social media, and more — from customer acquisition to loyalty campaigns.

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Dynamic channel leader to energise Zebra’s partner ecosystem and ignite regional innovation

MELBOURNE, Australia – Aug. 13, 2025 – Zebra Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: ZBRA), a global leader in digitising and automating frontline workflows, today announced the appointment of Richard Tjiputra as Head of Channels, Australia and New Zealand.

 “We are delighted to appoint Richard as Head of Channels for Australia and New Zealand,” said Tom Christodoulou, Sales Vice President for Australia, New Zealand, and India Sub-Continent. “Richard brings a contagious energy and passion for innovation, backed by deep channel expertise and a proven ability to spark transformative partnerships. His dynamic leadership will energise our partner ecosystem and accelerate the adoption of advanced technologies – such as RFID, machine vision, and next-generation automation – fuelling growth and unlocking new opportunities for our partners and customers.”

 Tjiputra has over 20 years of sales and channel management experience across the retail, transport & logistics, healthcare, and government sectors. Based in Sydney, he will focus on strengthening Zebra’s channel partnerships and driving regional growth.

 “I am honoured to take on this role and continue working with Zebra’s talented channel partners across Australia and New Zealand,” said Tjiputra. “I look forward to deepening our partnerships, driving strategic growth, and delivering innovative solutions that help our customers digitise and optimise their operations. Together with our partners, I am excited to further enable a connected frontline, improve asset visibility, and advance intelligent automation—building on Zebra’s strong foundation and contributing to the ongoing success of our customers in the region.”

 Tjiputra has been with Zebra for more than a decade, advancing through various channel development and sales leadership roles. He previously worked as a Sales Account Manager at Motorola Solutions and holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Business and Accounting from the University of Tarumanagara.

 KEY TAKEAWAYS 

• Zebra appoints Richard Tjiputra to lead channels in Australia and New Zealand, leveraging his over 20 years of expertise to boost partnerships and growth.
• Tjiputra aims to drive innovation by promoting advanced solutions like RFID, machine vision, and automation.
• With over a decade at Zebra and prior Motorola experience, Tjiputra brings proven channel leadership to the role.

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New York–based PR powerhouse 5WPR, one of the largest independent agencies in the U.S., is expanding its services in Israel to give local companies a sharper edge in global markets. The move folds media buying, full-scale digital marketing, public relations, and integrated digital strategy into one package—custom-tailored for the country’s famously fast-moving business ecosystem.

Betting Big on a Small but Mighty Market

From Tel Aviv’s AI labs to Jerusalem’s healthtech startups, Israel has long punched above its weight in tech and innovation. But building world-class products isn’t enough; companies need equally world-class visibility to compete abroad.

“Israel is a hub for entrepreneurship and groundbreaking innovation,” said Ronn Torossian, Founder and Chairman of 5WPR. “By expanding our services here, we are doubling down on our belief in the region’s potential.”

It’s a calculated move: global investors are circling Israel’s tech sector despite geopolitical uncertainty, and competition for attention—especially in the U.S. and Europe—is fierce.

What’s New in the Toolkit

5WPR’s enhanced Israel playbook spans:

• Earned media to build credibility

• Paid campaigns for precision targeting

• Influencer marketing to tap niche audiences

• SEO and content creation for long-tail visibility

• Strategic partnerships to fast-track market entry

The firm says the focus will be on measurable results, with integrated campaigns designed to turn awareness into traction—and traction into market share.

Context: A Global PR Arms Race

The expansion puts 5WPR in closer competition with global agencies already embedded in the Israeli scene, such as Edelman and Weber Shandwick. But with over two decades of brand-building experience for clients across technology, consumer goods, and healthcare, 5WPR is positioning itself as a one-stop communications engine for scale-ups ready to go global.

For Israeli founders, the takeaway is clear: while product-market fit is critical, so is perception-market fit. And in a crowded global stage, having a PR partner who understands both the local culture and international playbook could be the difference between being a tech news headline—or just another LinkedIn post.

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The global travel spotlight is shifting, and the U.S. risks dimming its presence.
Enter Tiki’s Amplify International Program—a timely lifeline for Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) scrambling to stay visible after federal tourism funding took a historic hit.

A Funding Crisis in the Making

In July 2025, Congress slashed federal tourism matching funds from $100 million to just $20 million via the Rescissions Act—an 80% drop. Industry leaders warn the cuts will cripple America’s ability to market itself abroad, just as international competition heats up.
And the timing couldn’t be worse. The 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Olympics will bring record-breaking waves of global travelers. Without robust international campaigns, U.S. destinations risk being outshined by more aggressive rivals in Europe, Asia, and beyond.

Tiki’s 3-for-1 Play

Tiki’s Amplify Program is designed to stretch every DMO marketing dollar to the max. For every $1 a destination invests in international media through Tiki, the company adds $2 in media value—essentially tripling campaign reach.

Jamie Claudio, SVP of Destination Strategy at Tiki, frames it bluntly: “With shrinking federal support, DMOs must adapt. Amplify ensures they can sustain the critical global visibility needed to attract international visitors—even under funding pressure.”

Beyond Just Ad Spend

The program isn’t just about bigger budgets—it’s about smarter campaigns. DMOs get:

• Fill the Funding Gap: Maintain and grow global reach despite cuts

• Triple the Campaign Value: Boost impact without inflating costs

• Full-Service Management: From campaign setup to optimization

• Localized Messaging: Ads tailored for language and culture fit

• Format Flexibility: AI-powered conversational units, immersive Lightbox ads, or native placements on 200+ premium global travel sites

Campaign eligibility covers all U.S. DMOs targeting international markets, with a minimum spend of $10,000 for Lightbox/Native ads or $25,000 for Envoy. Campaigns must run in FY 2025–2026.

The Bigger Picture

Tiki’s move aligns with a broader industry trend: tech-driven travel marketing stepping in where public funding pulls back. Similar models are emerging globally, with platforms offering co-investment, AI targeting, and premium inventory access to keep destinations competitive.

For DMOs, the Amplify Program isn’t just a patch—it’s a potential long-term play to stay relevant in a marketplace where visibility, timing, and cultural resonance make or break traveler interest.

As the U.S. rethinks how it sells itself abroad, programs like Tiki’s could be the difference between being a stopover… or the destination.

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The RepTrak Company—best known for turning corporate reputation into measurable, actionable data—has tapped two heavy hitters for its Board of Directors: Thierry D’Hers and Catherine Hernandez-Blades. The appointments are designed to fast-track product innovation, deepen AI capabilities, and sharpen governance expertise as the company scales its reputation intelligence platform.

A Data Visionary Joins the Fold

Thierry D’Hers brings serious product and engineering chops, with a career spanning more than two decades at the intersection of analytics and innovation. He played a key role in building Tableau’s data visualization capabilities—work that influenced Microsoft’s PowerBI ascent—before leading product and engineering at Vivun.

Now advising tech companies from AI startups to mission-driven nonprofits, D’Hers sees RepTrak as sitting “at the intersection of technology, data, and trust.” He joins the board as the company leans into AI-driven stakeholder perception tools.

A Global Reputation Leader with Governance Cred

Catherine Hernandez-Blades’ resume reads like a masterclass in corporate communications and governance. The Emmy and Cannes Lions award-winner has helmed marketing and communications at SAIC, Aflac, and Flex, and now serves on the board of CoreCivic. She’s also earned spots on the Forbes Top 50 Global CMOs list and at Davos for her international reputation work.

Hernandez-Blades isn’t just an admirer—she’s been a RepTrak customer for more than a decade. “It quantifies teams’ business impact and plays a critical role in C-suite decision-making,” she said, calling out the strategic importance of the company’s upcoming product releases.

Why This Matters for RepTrak

Both hires arrive as RepTrak pushes forward with Compass™, its new AI-powered platform aimed at giving brands a sharper, more predictive understanding of how they’re perceived by customers, employees, investors, and policymakers.

Mark Sonders, RepTrak’s CEO, says the blend of D’Hers’ product/AI expertise and Hernandez-Blades’ governance and ESG insight “positions us to serve our clients with more accurate information, deeper trust, and greater value than ever before.”

With AI and product innovation accelerating across martech and analytics, RepTrak’s board moves are as much about market positioning as they are about leadership—signaling that the company intends to compete not just on data, but on the intelligence and trust behind it.

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Podium is putting its AI-powered sales assistant—affectionately nicknamed “Jerry”—in the driver’s seat for Ford and Lincoln dealerships nationwide. The customer engagement company announced its AI BDC (Business Development Center) solution is now officially part of the FordDirect program, giving dealers exclusive pricing and direct integration into FordDirect’s Customer Journey Platform (CJP).

The move comes as dealerships face a trifecta of challenges: staffing shortages, tighter competition, and increasingly impatient consumers who expect instant responses. “This partnership is about delivering an end-to-end communication platform that drives measurable results,” said Eric Rea, Podium’s co-founder and CEO.

Why Dealers Should Care

Podium’s AI BDC is designed to handle every inbound lead instantly—with a human-like tone, in the dealership’s own voice—while drawing on more than a decade of automotive data to tailor responses. The system is built to schedule more appointments, lock in higher show rates, and free up staff for in-person sales.

Proven results from over 1,800 dealerships using Podium AI include:

• 80% increase in after-hours appointments

• 10% boost in appointment show rates

• 70% reduction in lead response times

• 30% improvement in lead-to-sale conversions

The FordDirect Advantage

With the integration, Podium’s AI BDC plugs directly into the FordDirect CJP, ensuring leads from multiple digital channels get an immediate, consistent response. For dealers, that means no more missed opportunities because a salesperson was tied up on the floor.

“FordDirect is proud to expand our partnership with Podium,” said Dean Stoneley, CEO of FordDirect. “This gives our dealers the ability to execute superior customer engagement, improving both customer and dealer satisfaction.”

Bigger Picture: AI in the Showroom

The automotive retail sector is no stranger to AI, but most implementations focus on inventory management or marketing analytics. Podium’s approach—embedding AI in the customer communication workflow—underscores a shift toward real-time, personalized engagement as a competitive differentiator.

For Ford and Lincoln dealers, this could mean more than just better efficiency; it’s about turning speed into sales. And in an industry where the first responder often wins the deal, “Jerry” might just become the most valuable employee in the showroom.

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Global IT giant FPT is doubling down on its AI-first ambitions with the launch of FleziPT, a new artificial intelligence platform designed to deliver end-to-end, industry-tailored AI transformation at speed and scale.

The platform, unveiled at FPT’s 2025 global client event in Danang, puts AI agents into every phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC)—turning what once took months into days. The result:

• 60% faster development cycles

• 50% less rework

• 30% higher productivity

AI-Driven SDLC: From Months to Days

FleziPT’s key differentiator is its ability to embed AI throughout the development process—whether in waterfall, agile, or hybrid models—allowing teams to run concurrent workflows, accelerate iteration, and increase precision. The AI-augmented workforce includes 12,000 AI-skilled engineers and a pipeline of one million digital workers in the making worldwide.

Proprietary toolsets like AgentVista, CodeVista, and TestVista handle code generation, testing, and optimization, while vertical-specific solutions like AIDP and IvyChat have already scored industry awards in 2024 and 2025.

Built for Every Industry—With an AI Talent Pipeline to Match

FPT is targeting high-value industries including manufacturing, healthcare, finance, automotive, and energy. The company is backing the platform with a multi-tier AI talent strategy:

• 2,000 AI/Data Engineering graduates per year from FPT University

• 1,500+ new AI experts trained by end of 2025

• 50,000 AI specialists targeted by 2030

The platform’s development is reinforced by strategic alliances with global AI leaders such as Microsoft, SAP, Landing AI, Mila, and NVIDIA—including the joint FPT AI Factory initiative.

A Co-Creation Approach

FPT is positioning FleziPT as more than a service—it’s an AI co-creation ecosystem. Clients can access AI labs, hackathons, and verticalized proof-of-concept builds, with solutions tuned for speed, scalability, and ethical compliance.

“We are not stopping at providing AI services,” said Pham Minh Tuan, CEO of FPT Software and EVP of FPT Corporation. “We deliver scalable, trusted, enterprise-grade AI solutions while upholding ethical and responsible AI practices.”

Context: Vietnam’s Rising AI Profile

The launch—timed with FPT’s 20-year milestone in Danang—highlights Vietnam’s growing role as a global innovation hub. The event drew over 400 industry leaders for AI exhibitions, panels, and live demos, underscoring the country’s move from offshore outsourcing to AI product leadership.

With FleziPT, FPT isn’t just chasing efficiency—it’s aiming to reshape the economics of software development and cement its role as a full-stack AI global systems integrator.

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Global IT and digital services heavyweight NTT DATA has inked a global partnership with Google Cloud aimed at accelerating AI-powered cloud innovation for enterprise customers worldwide. The move blends NTT DATA’s deep industry playbook with Google Cloud’s AI and analytics muscle, promising tailored solutions across industries from banking and healthcare to manufacturing and public sector.

This isn’t just a cloud hookup—it’s a bet on agentic AI and industry-specific modernization at scale. According to Gartner, public cloud spending will hit $723 billion by 2025—up from $595.7 billion in 2024—and AI adoption is one of the key drivers.

From Financial Compliance to AI Concierges

The partnership will build verticalized AI solutions that address sector-specific challenges. Examples include:

• Financial Services: NTT DATA’s Regla platform leveraging Google Cloud AI for compliance and reporting.

• Hospitality: A multilingual, 24/7 Virtual Travel Concierge using Google’s Gemini models to handle 3 million+ monthly conversations with real-time itinerary planning.

Under the hood, these offerings draw on Google Agentspace, Gemini AI models, and secure data clean rooms—wrapped in NTT DATA’s advisory, build, and managed services expertise.

Modernization With Sovereignty in Mind

Beyond industry use cases, the collaboration puts heavy emphasis on secure, sovereign cloud deployments using Google Distributed Cloud. Clients can choose air-gapped environments for maximum isolation or connected setups for compliant integration—critical for highly regulated sectors like finance, government, and healthcare.

NTT DATA is also rolling out a Google Distributed Cloud sandbox, giving developers a “digital playground” for rapid prototyping with pre-built templates, plus hands-on training for AI and cloud deployments.

Scaling Talent and Delivery Globally

To make it work at enterprise scale, NTT DATA is forming a global Google Cloud Business Group with thousands of engineers, architects, and consultants. The company plans to certify 5,000 engineers on Google Cloud tech, reinforcing its global delivery capacity.

This isn’t their first rodeo together—NTT DATA and Google Cloud already had a 2024 APAC co-innovation agreement. The partnership now expands globally, bolstered by NTT DATA’s acquisition of Niveus Solutions, a Google Cloud specialist that just won three 2025 Google Cloud Partner Awards.

Competitive Implications

The deal positions NTT DATA alongside other global integrators like Accenture, TCS, and Infosys racing to fuse AI frameworks with cloud modernization. NTT DATA’s Takumi GenAI framework—now integrated with Google Cloud’s AI stack—gives it a fast-track advantage in turning proofs-of-concept into production systems.

For enterprise IT leaders, the message is clear: modernize faster, personalize deeper, and keep it compliant—all while Google’s AI agents quietly crunch the heavy lifting.

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