Partnership Mastermind Podcast

Partner strategy has a shelf life. Gayathri Padmanabhan explains why your partner strategy has to change every time your company strategy does, and why more partners don't mean more revenue.Gayathri leads partnerships at ElevenLabs, building partnerships across system integrators, global SIs, hyperscalers, technology partners and private equity firms. She landed in partnerships by accident about 15 years ago at Freshworks, then led global partnerships at Intercom before joining ElevenLabs.In this conversation with Chris Lavoie, Gayathri covers:How to tie partner strategy to company strategy, and the signs it needs to changeThe early mistake of signing too many partners, and how to define your ideal partnerWhat leaders owe their partner managers, and why the best ones eliminate partners quicklyWhy private equity firms are an underrated partner channel for AI productsWhy partnerships should be a go-to-market lever as soon as you find product-market fitHow to narrow a partner portfolio without burning relationshipsWhat going deep looks like: joint business plans, exec alignment, MBRs and vertical enablementThe sales sponsor program that brings sales leaders closer to partnersRegional and cultural nuances, and the first 90 days in a new marketLearn more about Partnership Mastermind: https://www.partnershipmastermind.com

Most partner programs start with tiers. Pablo Hanono makes the case that tiers should come last.Pablo Hanono is a Senior Program Manager at Pegasystems and the founder of Books of the Channel. He started his career in Buenos Aires running the Intel Inside program in Argentina, worked on channel projects for Microsoft and Cisco across Latin America, and spent over a decade at Oracle running the partner program, including the 2020 redesign that moved more than 20,000 partners from revenue-based tiers to tracks and specializations.In this conversation with Chris Lavoie, Pablo covers:Why partners leave funds unused, and what Intel Inside Argentina taught him about awareness and executionTiers vs specializations: who each one is really forWhat a partner program manager does that a partner manager does notThe sequence for designing a program: company strategy, partner strategy, program strategy, then the frameworkHow Oracle reorganized around sellers, builders, services and MSPs, and what a year-long redesign actually involvesWhy the long tail of partners is not noise, and a 10-step activation list to make onboarding trackableWhy moving sideways in your career can be growthBooks and programs mentioned:Books of the Channel (Pablo Hanono)The Partnerships Operator Manual (Chris Lavoie)Marketing Multiplied (Mike Moore and Peter Thomas)The OpenAI and Anthropic partner programs, and Lovable's partner programLearn more about Partnership Mastermind: https://www.partnershipmastermind.comWatch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kHtTIkSRsk0

A great partnership meeting can feel productive. Executives are excited, the logos look good together, and everyone leaves talking about what could happen next.Dan O'Leary's test is simpler: did it turn into action?In this episode of the Partnership Mastermind Podcast, Chris Lavoie sits down with Dan, Head of Go-to-Market Partnerships at Lovable, for a tactical conversation about what partnership execution looks like inside an AI-native company moving at extreme speed.Dan explains why partner leaders should start with a customer problem, why the path from zero to one matters more than a perfect long-term plan, and why a first meeting without the next meetings booked may be nothing more than good vibes.The conversation then moves into a much larger shift: partner teams can increasingly build the tools, workflows, demos, integrations, agents, and internal systems they need themselves.You’ll hear:Dan's test for whether a partnership is actually realWhy he prefers to build partnerships through an existing customer needThe zero-to-one, one-to-ten, ten-to-one-hundred model for partner growthHow to hold partners accountable without treating every signed partner like a permanent commitmentWhy responsiveness and speed can matter more than partner sizeHow to understand the metrics and incentives driving your partner counterpartDan's "easy to buy is easy to sell" approach to hyperscaler and marketplace relationshipsHow he uses AI agents for both personal productivity and partnership executionWhy conversational natural language is opening software creation to non-engineersWhat partner teams should consider building themselvesWhere traditional software still wins because of network effects, trust, maintenance, proprietary data, and reliabilityWhy Dan believes senior leaders need to keep doing real customer and partner workThe through-line is agency. AI does not make partnership fundamentals less important. It gives strong operators much more power to move from idea to execution without waiting for someone else to build the thing they need.LinksLearn more about LovableExplore the Lovable Partner ProgramLearn more about Partnership Mastermind

Every partner leader wants the playbook. Vince Menzione’s argument is that the playbook is the part most likely to expire. In this episode of the Partnership Mastermind Podcast, Chris Lavoie sits down with Vince, Founder & CEO of Ultimate Partner®, to unpack the principles he believes survive changes in channel, co-sell, marketplaces, hyperscalers, and AI. The conversation starts with one of the hardest questions in partnership leadership: how do you know whether an executive team is actually committed to partnerships before you take the job? Vince shares the lesson he learned after joining a company as roughly its seventh partner leader in seven or eight years. From there, Chris and Vince get practical about what real commitment looks like across sales, marketing, product, compensation, metrics, budget, and executive ownership. They also dig into the internal work that partner teams too often skip. Vince calls it the "internal victory": building the mindset, executive commitment, vision, values, and cross-functional alignment required before recruiting more partners. You’ll hear: - How to pressure-test executive commitment before accepting a senior partnerships role - Why the CRO should be an early priority for most partner leaders - How heroic seller culture creates friction between sales and partnerships - Why overclaiming partner impact is a fast way to lose credibility - How sales champions can become the strongest internal advocates for partnerships - Why Vince believes every playbook eventually changes or expires - What "maniacal focus" looks like when a partnership is threaded across both companies - Why success is not only about what you build, but who you build it with - How trust and small relationship deposits compound over time Vince also shares the story behind his new book, The Ultimate Partner: 7 Principles for Winning in the Age of Ecosystems, AI, and Co-Sell, and why he wanted to create the resource he wishes he had earlier in his career. Get the book: https://theultimatepartner.com/book/ Learn more about Partnership Mastermind: https://partnershipmastermind.com/

In this episode of the Partnership Mastermind podcast, host Chris Lavoie sits down with Tricia Shea, Head of Channel Sales and Partnerships at Rain, to explore what it takes to build partner programs that actually generate revenue. Tricia shares how her journey from AE to channel leader shaped her approach, why she runs partner orgs like sales orgs, how she qualifies partners with the same rigor she applies to opportunities, and why a curated ecosystem beats a bloated roster of logos. We also dig into Rain’s mission of empowering workers with Earned Wage Access and how that mission influences Tricia’s partner conversations. If you’re a partner manager, channel seller or revenue leader, this conversation will give you actionable frameworks and the motivation to take partnerships seriously. Tune in, subscribe, and join the community at partnershipmastermind.com.