The AI Software Report with RJ Lumba

Dominating The E-Commerce Experience: Bloomreach’s Raj De Datta

In this episode, we speak with Raj De Datta, the Co-Founder and CEO of Bloomreach, a leading software platform for digital commerce experiences that powers brands representing 25% of retail E-Commerce in the US and the UK. He is also the best-selling author of "The Digital Seeker" - a playbook for digital teams to win big.
Founded in 2009 by Raj De Datta and Ashutosh Garg, Bloomreach was primarily focused on creating products centered around site search, which later evolved to include additional tools for merchandisers, such as product recommendations. They unify real-time customer and product data so businesses understand what customers really want.
Before launching Bloomreach, Raj was entrepreneur-in-residence at Mohr-Davidow Ventures, served as Cisco’s director of product marketing, and was on the founding team of telecom company FirstMark Communications.
Raj supports RepresentUs and United States Tennis Association.
I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show.  If you like the episode click to subscribe.

Boosting Sales Productivity: Mindtickle’s Krishna Depura

In this episode, we speak with Krishna Depura, the Co-Founder and CEO of MindTickle, a sales-readiness platform that helps fast-growing companies prepare their sales and customer success teams effectively, through building seller knowledge, skill sets, and winning behaviors. 
Created in 2011, MindTickle’s goal was to create frameworks and solutions to help influence revenue leaders who want to create high-performance teams. These world-class companies include Johnson & Johnson, Splunk, and Wipro. 
Before founding Mindtickle, Krishna most recently was the Director of Product Management at PubMatic. Additionally, Krishna has worked with leading companies and startups, including Microsoft, Tejas Networks, and Infinera.
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An Effective Clean Energy Entrepreneur: Palmetto’s Christopher Kemper

In this episode, we speak with Palmetto’s Founder and CEO, Christopher Kemper. Palmetto offers a Clean Energy Operating Platform, which makes it easier and more affordable for homeowners to source their energy from renewables like solar power.
Chris sees Palmetto as the ultimate platform to make the most significant impact on mitigating climate change and he is constantly seeking ways to compound their impact for the betterment of the environment, people, and consumers. 
Chris is currently a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Environment Programme and a Chairman for Pay It Forward For Climate. 
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World’s Leading Conversational AI Platform: Yellow.ai’s Raghu Ravinutala

In this episode, we speak with Raghu Ravinutala, Co-Founder and CEO of Yellow.ai, a global leader in Conversational AI that delivers autonomous, human-like experiences for customers and employees to accelerate enterprise growth.
Raghu co-founded the company with a vision to make customer and enterprise interactions more effective and effortless. Since its inception, Raghu and his team have successfully expanded Yellow.ai’s presence across the U.S., Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Japan, Australia and Latin America with over 1,000 customers in over 85 countries.
Previously, Raghu worked for 16 years with leading tech companies such as Texas Instruments, and Broadcom across leadership roles in engineering, product management and business development both in the Bay Area and India.
Raghu was recently recognized as one of the Top 50 SaaS CEOs of 2023 by The Software Report. The company is backed by Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, WestBridge Capital, and other notable investors.
I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show.  If you like the episode click to subscribe

Creating a Safer Internet: Aura’s Hari Ravichandran

In this episode, we speak with Hari Ravichandran, the Founder and CEO of Aura, a mission-driven technology company dedicated to creating a safer internet for everyone. 
In 2014, after Hari’s credit card information was stolen, he was inspired to start Aura and today, the company offers an easy-to-use, integrated suite of services trusted by more than one million customers.
Previously, Hari founded Endurance Group (Nasdaq:EIGI), a leading provider of cloud services for small businesses with worldwide operations and over 5 million customers.
He is also the Founder and CEO of Jump Ventures, a scalability infusion firm focused on long-term collaboration and strategically investing in businesses to drive exponential growth. 
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Conquering Digital Assets Trading: Talos’s Anton Katz

In this episode, we speak with Anton Katz, Co-Founder and CEO of Talos. Founded with Ethan Feldman in 2018, Talos provides an institutional-grade technology infrastructure that supports the full lifecycle of digital assets trading, from price discovery to execution through to settlement. 
The original vision of Talos was to build an intuitive system from the ground up, leveraging the latest technology and harnessing the power of blockchains to surpass what could be done in traditional markets. 
Before co-founding Talos, Anton was Head of Trading Technology for AQR Capital Management. Before that, he was the Director of Software at Broadway Technology. 
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Accessing Global Talent: Oyster’s Jack Mardack

In this episode, we speak with Jack Mardack, the Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer of Oyster, a human resources platform for globally distributed companies.
Oyster automates cross-border employment and makes it easy for growing companies of all sizes to tap the global talent pool and provide a great employment experience to remote hires around the world.
Jack Mardack’s mission was to redress the unequal distribution of job opportunities by encouraging organizations to think more globally about their talent. He is motivated by a vision of the world in which no talent is wasted because of location.
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Enterprise-Scale AI: SambaNova Systems’ Rodrigo Liang

In this episode, we speak with Rodrigo Liang, the Co-Founder and CEO of SambaNova Systems. Customers turn to SambaNova to quickly deploy state-of-the-art generative AI capabilities within the enterprise. Its purpose-built enterprise-scale AI platform is the technology backbone for the next generation of AI computing.
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the company was founded in 2017 by industry luminaries and is backed by investors including SoftBank, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Intel Capital, Google Ventures, and other notable investors.
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Hiring The Best and Brightest: SmartRecruiters’ Jerome Ternynck

In this episode, we speak with Jerome Ternynck, the Founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters, a next-generation platform that serves as the hiring operating system for 4,000 customers like Bosch, LinkedIn, Skechers, and Visa. The company is backed by Mayfield, Salesforce and Insight.
Jerome is an entrepreneur with a strong interest in recruiting and technology. His overall goal is to bring the economy to its full potential by removing friction in the labor market and eradicating unemployment.
Jerome has also previously founded MrTed Ltd, Talents Technology, and Accord Group ECE.
I am your host RJ Lumba. We hope you enjoy the show. If you like the episode click to follow.

The Most Advanced Recruiting Platform: Gem’s Steven Bartel

In this episode, we chat with Steven Bartel, the Co-Founder and CEO of Gem, a leading recruiting platform that combines ATS, CRM, AI Sourcing, scheduling, and talent marketing. With nearly 100 integrations, Gem works alongside LinkedIn and other well-known job sources.
Co-founders Steven Bartel and Nick Bushak were previously engineering managers at Dropbox and Facebook, both companies that at the time were looking to rapidly hire and expand. Steven and Nick knew that managing and nurturing relationships with top talent was going to require a new kind of software—built specifically for recruiters—that could automate tasks, track touchpoints, show pipeline views, and offer analytics for forecasting hires.
Over 1,200 industry leaders, including Wayfair, Dropbox, Cintas, Robinhood, and UnitedHealth, trust Gem to fuel their growth.  The company is backed by ICONIQ, Greylock, Accel, and other notable investors.
I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show.  If you like the episode click to subscribe.