Leader Generation

How do you know if your media spending is bringing customers through the door? And how can you use that information while a campaign is still running? Alia Lamborghini, SVP of Global Revenue at Yahoo DSP, joins Tessa Burg to discuss how marketers can connect advertising to the business results that matter. Alia explains how customer data and real-time insights can help teams reach the right audiences and adjust campaigns sooner. She also shares where AI agents can take routine work off marketers’ plates, why human oversight still matters, and what to look for when choosing a media partner. Listen for a practical perspective on getting more from your media investments and preparing for 2027. You’ll come away with a clearer sense of the questions to ask your partners and how to give your team more time for thoughtful, collaborative work. Leader Generation is hosted by Tessa Burg and brought to you by Mod Op. About Alia Lamborghini: Alia Lamborghini is SVP of Global Revenue for Yahoo DSP, where she leads global sales, client services, agency partnerships, and commerce partnerships for one of the industry's leading independent demand-side platforms. With more than 20 years of experience in digital advertising, she has built a reputation for helping brands and agencies navigate industry transformation while driving measurable business growth. Alia has played a key role in bringing Yahoo DSP's newest innovations, including AI-powered advertising solutions, commerce media partnerships, and emerging agentic advertising capabilities to market, helping advertisers unlock greater performance and efficiency. A trusted leader and mentor, she serves as executive sponsor of Yahoo's Diversity and Racial Equity Board and leads the Yahoo Client Advisory Board. Alia also serves on the boards of the Media and Marketing Alliance and Comic Relief US, and is passionate about developing the next generation of advertising leaders. Alia can be reached on LinkedIn. About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council, and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen, and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at [email protected].

A great idea can open the door. Turning it into a business that can grow takes something more: the right systems, partnerships and willingness to learn along the way. In this episode, Tessa Burg talks with Miller McCoy, founder and CEO of Limitless MFG, about how he transformed a small clothing brand into an end-to-end merchandise business serving major artists and brands. Miller shares how saying yes to unfamiliar opportunities helped his company expand into manufacturing, touring, fulfillment, e-commerce and customer service. You’ll hear how Limitless grew through referrals, reduced risk by diversifying its client base and built a flexible partner network that can handle millions of garments without the overhead of owning factories.  Listen for practical lessons on finding new ways to deliver value, turning one-off solutions into repeatable systems and building a business that can scale. Leader Generation is hosted by Tessa Burg and brought to you by Mod Op. About Miller McCoy: Miller McCoy is the Founder and CEO of Limitless MFG, a full-service brand, merchandise, and product-development agency built for the entertainment and creator economy. He partners with artists, athletes, creators, and IP owners to turn ideas and audiences into scalable lifestyle brands—leading strategy, product development, manufacturing, e-commerce, fulfillment, and live-event merchandise. Known for pairing creative instinct with operational execution, Miller has helped build Limitless into a fast-growing platform supporting everything from limited-edition product drops to large-scale tour and retail programs. Under his leadership, Limitless MFG has earned recognition as a leading apparel manufacturer on the Inc. 5000 list, being named the fastest growing apparel manufacturer in 2025 and 2026 while expanding its production and fulfillment footprint nationwide. Miller’s focus is simple: build brands with real cultural relevance, strong product, and the infrastructure to grow far beyond a single launch. About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at [email protected].  

AI can make existing work faster, but its greatest value may come from helping organizations rethink the work altogether. In this episode of Leader Generation, Tessa Burg talks with Chris Colangelo, AI leader for Verizon Business Group, about how leaders can move beyond incremental improvements and use AI to solve bigger customer and employee challenges. Chris shares practical lessons from leading AI transformation at scale, including how to find the right starting points, build momentum with willing teams and help employees focus on the value they bring rather than the tasks they perform today. You’ll also hear how AI is changing marketing through campaign simulation, smarter personalization and closer coordination between marketing and sales. Listen to learn why AI should start with a real problem rather than a technology, how faster processes can elevate human thinking and why understanding customer rejection may be just as important as measuring conversion. About Chris Colangelo: Chris Colangelo is the Associate Vice President of Business Technology and AI at Verizon Business, where he directs the enterprise AI strategy, technology operations, and platforms powering global sales, marketing, and customer engagement. In this role, he leads the deployment of generative AI capabilities to transform corporate workflows while managing the integration of core systems like Salesforce, Adobe Marketing Cloud, and Pega. His strategic focus centers on leveraging automation to deliver highly personalized customer journeys and accelerate large-scale digital transformations. Throughout his career, Chris has specialized in driving commercial growth through technology, notably leading large digital transformations that doubled digital sales and scaled Verizon's B2B multi-billion-dollar revenue platforms. His expertise includes sales, MarTech and RevTech innovation, e-commerce strategy, and digital customer experience. He is passionate about delivering value out of bold ideas and fighting through tough executions. About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at [email protected].

Ever wonder why some brands feel confident showing up in new digital spaces while others seem to hold back? In this episode of Leader Generation, Tessa Burg talks with Stephanie Posner from DoubleVerify about something a lot of people worry about when it comes to AI: trust.  Stephanie’s career path has taken her from diplomatic work in the Middle East to Netflix to TikTok and now to DoubleVerify, and she brings all that experience into how she thinks about protecting brands online. Stephanie shares what it actually takes to build a team that blends human judgment with machine learning and why that combo tends to work better than leaning on AI alone.  Leader Generation is hosted by Tessa Burg and brought to you by Mod Op. About Stephanie Posner: Stephanie Posner is VP of Policy, Safety & Global Affairs at DoubleVerify (NYSE: DV), the industry's leading media effectiveness platform. She leads the global team responsible for the policies and standards that underpin DV's AI-powered brand suitability products — the classification solutions used by the world's largest advertisers to protect their brands across the open web, social platforms, and streaming TV. A recognized policy strategist, public speaker, product leader and trust & safety practitioner, Stephanie has driven landmark initiatives including DV's AI Slop detection product (first-to-market on YouTube and Meta), the Internet Watch Foundation child safety partnership, and the DoubleVerify News Accelerator Publisher Council. She has deep expertise in machine learning, responsible AI, content classification, ad-tech, brand integrity, trust and safety, and international tech regulation from her time at TikTok, Netflix & DoubleVerify. Prior to DV, she led Monetization Product Policy at TikTok and helped shape Netflix’s global content and risk strategy. She is passionate about responsible AI, transparent advertising standards, and building a better internet for everyone. Before entering the tech industry, Stephanie was a senior diplomatic advisor in London.  She holds an MBA and MA in Global Affairs from Yale University, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal of International Affairs. Stephanie also holds a BA in Classics from Cambridge University and was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University. She can be reached on LinkedIn. About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at [email protected].

AI can analyze enormous amounts of information, but more data does not always lead to better decisions.  In this episode of Leader Generation, Tessa Burg talks with Dean Smith, CTO at Credit Benchmark, about why accurate, trusted data matters more than ever and how poor-quality information can quickly lead AI further from the truth. Dean shares a practical way for businesses to make progress without trying to overhaul everything at once: start with one problem, bring together the data needed to solve it and build from there.  Listen to learn how your organization can improve data quality, show value sooner and create a more adaptable data-first culture. Leader Generation is hosted by Tessa Burg and brought to you by Mod Op. About Dean Smith: Dean Smith is Chief Technology & Product Officer at Credit Benchmark, where he leads the company's technology strategy, engineering, data infrastructure and platform development. He is responsible for scaling Credit Benchmark's technology platform and advancing its data capabilities to meet the evolving needs of global financial institutions, with a focus on strengthening the integration between product innovation, data infrastructure and client delivery.  Dean can be reached on LinkedIn. About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at [email protected].