Fine Tune with Corby Fine

Is your B2B marketing playbook built for a generation that's no longer in charge? With 71% of B2B decision-makers now being Gen Z or Millennial, the old strategies of white papers and logo-heavy content are becoming obsolete. The leaders who will win are the ones who adapt—and fast.This week, Corby sits down with Matt Derella, a pivotal leader in digital advertising who currently runs the ads business at LinkedIn and formerly served as the Chief Customer Officer at Twitter. Matt provides an insider's look at the massive shifts reshaping the industry and offers a new playbook for growth, leadership, and C-suite alignment.In this episode, you will learn:Why the rise of Millennial and Gen Z decision-makers requires a fundamental shift from logos to people and from text to video.How to get your CMO and CFO on the same page by ditching vanity metrics and focusing on what truly matters: quality pipeline.Leadership lessons on courage and challenging the status quo, forged during a crucial turnaround period at Twitter.How AI is "lifting the floor" for creative output and why human craft and trusted expertise will become more valuable than ever.Practical, non-negotiable principles for leading with respect and getting the best from your team.Tune in for a masterclass in future-proofing your marketing strategy and leadership with one of the industry's most insightful leaders.

Today, Corby welcomes Jon Finnie, the head of international sales for Yahoo Ads. With a rich background in Canadian marketing, advertising, and media, Jon shares his insights on driving revenue across Yahoo's diverse consumer properties, including Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, as well as its demand side platform, Yahoo DSP. Tune in to hear Jon discuss the evolving landscape of digital advertising, the importance of empowering buyers with control over their campaigns, and how Yahoo is navigating privacy regulations and the shift to a cookie-less environment. Discover how AI is revolutionizing campaign optimization and audience targeting, and get a glimpse into the future of marketing in 2025.Don't miss this engaging conversation filled with industry expertise, practical advice, and a touch of nostalgia as Corby and Jon reflect on the past and look forward to the exciting opportunities ahead. Subscribe now and stay ahead in the ever-changing world of digital marketing! 🚀

Helping organizations embrace emerging technologies so that they can have a better relationship with their customers, unlock growth and build their brand is the goal of Forum3. Co-founders Adam Brotman and Andy Sack know a thing or two about each of those goals, which is why they started the business in the first place, and the emerging technology of focus, Generative AI.Adam is the former Chief Digital Officer at Starbucks, where he was responsible for building the brand’s Odyssey loyalty platform, Mobile App and led the company through its massive digital transformation. Andy is a seasoned tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist who recently spent 7+ years advising Satya Nadella on new product innovation and digital transformation. Together, they seek to connect the flywheels between new technology, brands and customer engagement.As Adam and Andy discuss, organizations, brands and leaders have to get over their fear of new technologies like Generative AI, and just start experimenting. The trend line that's going on with this technology is so fast that brands need to start now with experimentation. They need to start thinking about how to incorporate it in their workflow, how to introduce it to their customer relationship strategy, if not directly to their customers, because if they don't start to experiment with it, Adam and Andy are confident they will be left behind. To help with this, the two started Forum3 and their initial product Hive3, a competitive AI league where top creators compete for cash prizes and rewards from leading consumer brands. They provide a platform for AI creators to showcase their talent and compete against fellow innovators. As the two co-founders put it, "We have our own community of a couple of thousand of what we call, super prompters, providing intelligence as a service."So listen in on how AI is going to change everything, how to best take advantage, and how to not get left behind. Oh, did I also mention they are writing a book with Harvard Press to be released soon? What can't they do?

As marketing teams change their focus from successful campaign launches to measuring outcomes in an agile operating model, there is a fundamental shift requiring significant trust from the rest of the organization taking place. As Meghan Nameth describes, it is probably the biggest leap of faith that an organization can take, as most people, especially in senior executive positions, are used to seeing everything before it happens. In an agile, outcomes based world, things are very different.Listen in as Meghan and I discuss many of the issues and opportunities facing marketing teams and CMOs today including the effectiveness of creative, placement and message, the effectiveness of AI models versus simple triggers, and how complacency is the enemy of progress. Meghan gives some incredible examples and her established opinions on these and other topics.Meghan Nameth is the former and most recent SVP of Marketing for Loblaw Companies, having led the marketing organization to grow and strengthen some of Canada's most iconic brands from Shoppers Drug Mart, Presidents Choice, No Name, Loblaws, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Maxi and more... Meghan joined Loblaw in 2021 from Hudson’s Bay Company, where she was CMO and prior to HBC she held several executive positions in brand management, digital marketing, data & analytics and product innovation for PwC, TD Bank & TD Insurance, Mars Canada, and P&G.

Pinterest is not really social media in the traditional sense, it's more personal media. As the "ultimate discovery platform", Pinterest is just in its very nature, a place where people feel hopeful when they are thinking about the future. As Erin Elofson describes in our discussion, "when using Pinterest you're fundamentally happy, reflecting on the past is a harder emotional process, and that's what happens often in social media, you're sort of being compared to others. Kids for example are probably thinking, why wasn't I invited to that party?" That's not what happens on Pinterest.As people start planning for milestones in their lives using Pinterest, not only does the platform get early indications, but that offers signals to advertisers of things like wedding planning, moving homes or even having a baby. All happy and future based events. Listen in as Erin and I discuss the business and consumer use of Pinterest. By the way, did you know that nine out of the ten people who use Pinterest to plan their happy future come with commercial intent? Often they don't know what brand or product they need to get there. What an opportunity for advertisers.Given Pinterest in focused on the future, they have also become experts in predicting trends. They call their annual insights on trends 'Pinterest Predicts'. Simply put it's Pinterest's way of saying what's going to happen, and 80% of the trends they reveal in the annual Pinterest Predicts report are correct.The future is happy and Pinterest is helping their 400 million users get there!

In a world where consumers are moving their banking transactions online and leaving branches as remnants of the past, how does one bank differentiate themselves from the other? According to Maja Neable, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Banking at BMO Financial Group, it is a combination of what consumers think about as a perceived convenience, and the distinctiveness that a bank can create to try and convince consumers that they are really different. The balance for automation and self-service, along with the need for timely advice, is something that banks are trying to figure out. The young Generation Z client believes that they will probably never set foot in a branch, though as their financial needs evolve and they mature in their financial journey, they often realize the need to ask for and get human advice. Therefore, for those value-adding conversations, banks like BMO need to figure out why people should choose to stay with them, and it is mostly a result of being able to simply provide the right advice and truly help them. As we know, many things happen in life and we often need help. That help may not happen physically in the branch. Consumers can choose to talk to somebody on the phone, through video chat or perhaps even text chat. There is a lot of assistance and advice that can be delivered through digital channels. Listen in as Maja and I discuss these and other topics around the future of banks. Maja Neable is well recognized as an innovative, action-oriented marketing leader with strong digital background. Prior to her current role, Maja was VP Digital Marketing at BMO and prior to BMO, Maja held successively more senior roles across the US, Canada, and Europe in a variety of industries, including technology (Microsoft and Expedia) and telecommunications (Rogers and Telenor). Maja is a mathematician who loves creativity, and this combination of left & right brain is what has guided her career. Her 20+ years of experience include digital marketing, design & product development, business & brand strategy and sales & service leadership. Maja sits on the Board of Soulpepper theatre and is Vice-Chair of the Board at Skills for Change. She holds B Math degree from the University of Waterloo, and an MBA from IMD, Switzerland. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two sons, and enjoys skiing, running, and reading.

The Canadian healthcare system is typically ranked as either the lowest ranked or second lowest ranked performing healthcare system of all developed world nations. Our physicians are great. Our procedures, world class. Then why such a low ranking?According to Dr. Brett Belchetz, the reason why we are so far behind in the rankings is access. Only about half of Canadian doctors work full-time. That is one of the main reasons why Canadians wait so long for care. The perception is that there simply are not enough doctors. In fact, it's because we're not using our doctors properly. Dr. Brett Belchetz is trying to tackle this exact issue. He is the CEO and Co-founder of Maple, Canada’s leading virtual care provider connecting patients and healthcare providers like doctors and therapists for online medical visits in minutes. He’s also a practicing physician in Toronto, and a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute. In addition, Brett’s passion for healthcare communication and policy have led him to work as an on-air medical expert for CTV and Global News, as well as a contributor to outlets such as the National Post. Previously, Brett worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.It is estimated that about 70% of the visits that people are making to clinics, hospitals and their family doctors can be digitized. Maple is out to enable that. As Maple continues to evolve, it is moving to a proactive model, where they can let patients know the frequency of visits that they need to have. They will tip you off when you need a screening test done or an intervention done. They will have resources available between those healthcare visits. So it's not just see a healthcare provider and you're kind of on your own until the next visit in a month or three months. It's an entire program. Best of all, Dr. Belchetz wants to make this made in Canada healthcare IP the basis of healthcare systems around the world.

Jed Schneiderman is a proven entrepreneur, and executive in the marketing, media and technology space. When I think of Jed, I think of someone who is known for his thought leadership on topics ranging from marketing and technology, to being an entrepreneur and building successful businesses in the mobile, streaming, broadcast and internet technology spaces, and in "connecting the dots" having been at the forefront of major consumer tech trends and events, and by leveraging strong marketing experience across multiple global brands.Jed was the Co-Founder and President of Tapped Mobile, a leading North American mobile media company which was acquired by EQ Works in 2018 and before that, Jed was the On-Line Business Group Lead at Microsoft Canada where he was responsible for driving the business and marketing strategies for the Windows Live, Search and the Mobile Services businesses. This is where I met him - as the lead on his agency doing a bunch of cool and innovative digital marketing campaigns...So - the reason I asked Jed to join me today is that I find he is the most tagged LinkedIn profile I know of when people want someone's opinion on a variety of topics...and so my big theme of the day is, how is anyone expected to stay on top of all the fast moving and developing information or marketing, technology, business and digital transformation...People always ask me, how do I seem to stay abreast of the latest and greatest...FOLLOW JED ONLINE! Simple right....Here are a few highlights of Jed's wisdom from our discussion and below, a list of the sources Jed referenced as his go to destinations for staying on top of our ever changing digital and marketing environments: "We live in a world where there is so much content that at some point curation becomes one of the most important things""Machine learning is good for pattern recognition, but I don't think it's good for insight""Maintain curiosity" "Don't underestimate the power of asking great questions"GeneralThe Message https://the-message.ca/The Peak https://www.readthepeak.com/Media in Canada https://mediaincanada.com/MarketingMark Evans - https://www.marketingspark.co/Tech https://techcrunch.com/Ad Techhttps://www.adexchanger.com/Data / Chartshttp://www.emarketer.com/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/https://www.chartr.co/Funhttps://patentdrop.substack.com/ - shows new patent filingsPodcasts How I built this - https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-thisReid Hoffman Masters of Scale - https://mastersofscale.com/Work Life with Adam Grant - Org Culture - https://www.adamgrant.net/podcast/Fine Tune with Corby Fine - https://www.corbyfine.com/NewslettersTim Dolan Kickframe - https://www.kickframe.com/blog/Ben Evan - https://www.ben-evans.com/ Tomasz Tunguz - SaaS focused - https://tomtunguz.com/Daniel Eckler - Sapcecadet - Innovation and

SkipTheDishes is growing, and FAST! In the third quarter of this year the number of orders rose by 98% to 23.5 million when compared to the same period in 2019. Canadians have long had a legacy of picking up food but pushed by the Covid restrictions and cooling weather, things are changing. SkipTheDishes was founded in 2012 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and eventually moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba to set up the tech company’s head office. During their first few years of existence, the company was bootstrapped and raised a small round of seed capital from angel investors. They then raised additional capital from private investors, as well as four prominent venture capital firms - Golden Venture Partners (Toronto, Ontario), Founder Collective (New York, New York), Felicis Ventures (Menlo Park, California), and FJ Labs (Cambridge, Massachusetts).In December 2016, they were acquired by Just Eat for $200M becoming one of Canada's best technology startup success stories. SkipTheDishes remained a subsidiary and separate brand from Just Eat, with its Canadian headquarters remaining in Winnipeg. Soon after, in 2018 the company brought on Kevin Edwards as their CMO. Within that same year, Kevin was promoted to CEO, a role he still holds today.In this episode, Kevin and I discuss a number of topics including the natural shift of consumer behaviour to include more self-serve and digital experiences. We also talk about growing a company in a smaller market (Winnipeg) and how culture and trust in your team can go a long way to help your success. Did you know that SkipTheDishes has 2,500 employees in a city of 750,000? Neither did I. Listen in as Kevin and I discuss these and many other interesting topics that are sure to make you want to open the app and order some food.

It doesn’t matter whether the drain in your kitchen sink gets clogged, the toilet backs up, or the shower stops working: any plumbing problem brings with it a state of high urgency. For most people, the first course of action is to quickly look up the contact details of their local plumber, assuming of course they can navigate the complexity of choices and options shown with every Google search. Then the question is, can you get a service provider to come and resolve your issue quickly? As the leading North American plumbing and water cleanup service, Roto-Rooter has been a household name for many of us for decades. However, over the years it became increasingly important for Roto-Rooter to modernize their website and digital platforms so that they could continue to provide the best customer experience, both online and offline.The company’s platform had to understand the location of the customer in relation to the nearest service technician. It has to load quickly and make it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for, otherwise they will search elsewhere.Roto-Rooter engaged with Microsoft and Architech, a Toronto based company who are experts in software development and digital transformation to take on the project. What they built was a new cloud-based solution that not only improved the customer experience, but also boosted the site's overall SEO, cut page load speeds, and allowed Roto-Rooter to scale reliably into the future. In fact, this solution was recognized by Microsoft on the global stage, winning the Global Partner of the Year Award for open-source solutions on Azure in 2020. Listen in as Sally Bayer, Vice-President of Marketing for Roto-Rooter, David Suydam, CEO & Founder of Architech, and Stephen Tanaka, GM Microsoft Partners, Microsoft Canada, discuss the state of digital transformation and the project that helped Roto-Rooter become even more capable of maintaining their market position as a leader in their industry.When you are done this episode, then listen to the rest of my podcast and let me know what you think about it by subscribing to my email list. I hope you enjoy listening. If you have any ideas for other interviews or topics, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Every once in a while I come across an organization that I had no idea existed, you know, we've all had that experience where we're looking up a stock symbol, we're watching a financial news show, we find out one of our friends or colleagues or neighbors work somewhere. We ask them what they do, and it's like, what the heck is that? I didn't even really know that existed!Well, last year I was in Vancouver and I was speaking at a session for one of my favorite technology companies, Adobe, and I had an opportunity to meet an individual, Manoj Jasra, who was exactly in one of those situations, working for an organization in this really cool role that I seriously had no idea existed. The company is Northland Properties, and I had never heard of them.What I did know were all of the brands and assets that roll up into it. So it was just this weird, interesting conversation. And so I asked Manoj to join me on the podcast to talk a little bit about himself, a little bit about his really interesting role and a little bit about his really interesting company, Northland Properties.Recognized throughout Canada as one of the most trusted names in hotels, restaurants, sports, and construction, Northland Properties Corporation is the force behind such brands as Sandman Hotel Group, The Sutton Place Hotels, Moxie’s Grill & Bar, Chop Steakhouse & Bar, Denny’s Restaurants, the Dallas Stars, and Northland Asset Management Company. Proud to be 100% Canadian-owned and operated, with over 50 hotels across Canada, the UK, Ireland and the USA, they have head offices in both Calgary and Vancouver, and employ over 12,000 talented individuals across the world.In the role of Chief Digital Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, Manoj is tasked with transforming this legacy business, building out internal marketing agency and digital capabilities, while growing revenues and enhancing the customer experience across all of their properties and brands.Listen in to Manoj Jasra as he shares his stories and opinions as an authority on how to transform organizations, build internal agency capabilities and redefine the role of the CDO and CMO. Then, listen to the rest of my podcast and let me know what you think about it by subscribing to my email list. I hope you enjoy listening. If you have any ideas for other interviews or topics, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

It was 1999 and I was early in my career, VERY early in my career. I had started as a product manager at a "stealthy startup" and found myself working for a really smart and charismatic individual, Michael Tamblyn. Michael was in charge of product and I was there to learn.Flash forward a decade or two, and I now sit at my computer with a microphone and headphones, and in my screen is a slightly more mature Michael Tamblyn in a much different role. This time, as the CEO of Rakuten Kobo, Michael and I sit down to talk about his experiences leading and growing a Toronto startup through a global expansion and acquisition by a not so likely suitor. Not a venture fund, not a valley power-house, not a wealthy family...but the largest e-commerce player in Japan, Rakuten.Michael gives some great tips for leaders in any business to consider. First, use your competitors as your distribution channel. Imagine, books being sold electronically through retailers that sold the traditional print versions of the same product. Second, remember it is a lot easier and cost effective to find a market adjacency for your existing customer base than to build a new customer base from scratch. Third, taking the physical out of the mix of your business can simplify and create new opportunities for expansion. And fourth, if you can get your customers to build your product and content...well the outcomes are obvious.How would Michael's tips from his experience at Kobo apply to your business? Why not listen and try to figure it out.Listen to the rest of my podcast as well and let me know what you think buy subscribing to my email list. I hope you enjoy listening. If you have any ideas for other interviews or topics, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

Everyone is a population of 1.For me, that is no more evident than in my career path. Over 20 years, I have gone from coding databases to selling Viagra to running a 2MM customer digital bank.I have decided to launch this Podcast, FineTune with Corby Fine, for those of you who are looking to 'Fine Tune' your business, your team or yourself. I am going to offer innovative ideas, opinions and examples to address all kinds of different challenges, while identifying opportunities to help you innovate and succeed using my two decades of experience. You will hear and learn from the best interviews, case studies and ideas in marketing, digital transformation, analytics and leadership. I promise you that in every episode, there will be those one or two nuggets that you can action...not just theory, but challenges for you to tackle head on. Ready to learn something new...then let’s go...For today’s initial Podcast. I wanted to give a little bit of context to who I am, how I think, and why you should keep listening after this initial pilot episode...and there is no better way to start than to try and give you some context as to my leadership style and how I approach teams that work with me. How you manage people is a good sign of how you think and act in other areas of your life as well.