Cordial

· Repositioned the brand around a bold narrative: The Battle for Attention
· Driving GTM strategy across brand, demand, product marketing, ABM, customer advocacy, and events
· Launched Cordial Edge — an AI-powered personalization engine — at NRF
· Leading a lean team of 10 marketers supporting 30%+ YoY growth
· Created our “12 Big Rocks” framework to align marketing with revenue outcomes
· Driving activation across channels: social, content, sales enablement, PR, and web

Chief Marketing Officer

Clari

· Acted as interim CMO, owned the end-to-end marketing engine
· Created “Lightning Strikes” to drive market moments that moved pipeline fast
· Led thought leadership and content strategy to position Clari as the leader in Revenue Platform
· Orchestrated a new GTM playbook tied tightly to sales and product motion
· Team delivered consistent inbound volume, major launches, and brand lift — on repeat

GVP, Marketing

· Led the narrative: repositioned Clari around the Revenue Platform and redefined its category
· Launched breakthrough campaigns, creative events, and keynote-worthy product moments
· Built a content engine that fueled sales enablement, customer education, and inbound
· Partnered across sales, CS, and product to drive alignment on every launch
· Team = a tight crew of product marketers, storytellers, and category designers

VP, Brand, Content and Product Marketing

Product Marketing Alliance

· Top Influencer (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024)
· Best Team of the Year Award 2021
· Teacher at PMA's Leaders Fellowship program
· Keynote speaker

Product Marketing Alliance Mentor & Teacher

Gong

·  Launched new products, SKUs, and campaigns that made noise — and moved revenue
·  Created standout stories across channels — from Celebrate keynotes to Super Bowl ads
·  Drove Gong’s category dominance in Revenue Intelligence
·  Built customer programs that turned users into evangelists (and case studies into art)
·  Marketing wasn’t just creative — it was tied to pipeline, adoption, and expansion

Vice President, Product and Customer Marketing at Gong

Talend

· Repositioned Talend in a crowded data space with sharper messaging and clearer value props
· Led GTM strategy across product launches, solution marketing, and integrated campaigns
· Built sales enablement programs that improved pitch consistency and competitive win rates
· Partnered with product and sales to align roadmap storytelling with market needs
· Drove increases in brand awareness, pipeline velocity, and ARR growth within 3 quarters

Vice President, Product Marketing

Salesforce

· Led technical product marketing for Einstein, Salesforce’s flagship AI platform
· Launched Einstein at Dreamforce ‘16 — the biggest product launch in company history
· Built and scaled GTM: demos, content, pricing & packaging, and enablement
· Created the Einstein Champions program to amplify customer voices
· Enabled 200+ SEs with a full certification program
· Presented at Dreamforce keynotes, executive briefings, and third-party events
· Influenced $100M+ in ARR and drove exponential product adoption

Senior Director, Product Marketing, Einstein

· Led technical product marketing for Wave Analytics
· Secured leadership placement in Gartner MQ through analyst engagement
· Launched vertical-specific solutions: Analytics for Sales, Service, and Communities
· Built scalable demo assets used by 1,000+ AEs and SEs
· Generated 5x pipeline and ARR through targeted campaigns and programs

Director, Product Marketing, Analytics

My responsibilities include core messaging/ positioning, develop picture-perfect content and create killer demo scenarios.

KXEN

I am responsible for all aspects of outbound marketing content needed to support marketing efforts and sales cycles in the company.

Senior Product Marketing Manager

Worked on proof of concepts, pilots and go-live deployments at 50+ customers across a spectrum of industries, including communications, finance, retail and e-Business

Technical Director, Social Network Analysis

Specialized in Predictive Analytics and Social Network Analysis 

International experience:
- in many industries: Telco, e-Commerce, Automotive, Bank, Retail, etc.
- and many Horizontals: CRM, Fraud, R&D (Reliability, Performance), etc.

Presales engineer

Altran

Head of the ALTRAN Statistics and Optimization Offer.
This Offer aimed at helping our clients to :
- save time,
- analyze data,
- model phenomena / processes,
- optimize outputs / costs,
through innovative, statistical techniques that we developed and/or specialized into.

Senior Consultant

Diagnostica Stago

Project Manager for the Chronometric Signals Processing.
Expert Consultant for the statistical analyses (involving decision tree techniques).

Data Science Project Manager

Brand, Content and Product Marketing at Clari. Ex Salesforce, Gong, Talend

I help B2B SaaS companies go from “what do you do again?” to “how did I live without this?”

Over the last 10+ years, I’ve led marketing at some of the most iconic (and category-defining) companies in tech — Salesforce, Gong, Clari — and now Cordial. From brand storytelling to GTM strategy, my teams have designed categories, launched products, repositioned companies, and created campaigns that punch way above their weight.

Today at Cordial, I’m focused on helping retail brands win the battle for attention — with smarter AI, deeper customer signals, and personalized messaging that actually performs.

I also teach with the Product Marketing Alliance and nerd out about positioning frameworks, lightning strikes, and the psychology behind why messages stick.

If you’re a fellow marketer, builder, or founder — let’s connect.

Hey, Product Marketing friends:

Stop treating positioning as the deliverable.


It’s the 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒, not the finish line.

The rest of Marketing doesn’t care. They want campaigns, website copy, event messaging.
 
Sales doesn’t care. They need first-call decks, objection handling, constant reinforcement.

Product doesn’t care. They want insights that shape roadmap.

CS doesn’t care. They want renewal talk tracks and advocacy hooks.

A doc on its own changes nothing.

Positioning only works when it lives:
➔ Activated across every internal + external channel
➔ Evangelized by you, your CMO, your CEO
➔ Proved through impact metrics (stage conversions, CTRs, win rates, ASP lift)

At Gong, when reps actually used the new narrative, win rates jumped +46%.
At Clari, activating positioning tied to the “Run Revenue” story helped us hit 140%+ of pipeline target.

The impact of positioning isn’t measured in pages created.
It’s measured in pipeline created.

Because the market doesn’t read your positioning doc.
Your teams don’t either.

Julien Sauvage 🥖

CMO @ Cordial | Ex-Gong, Clari, Salesforce, Talend | Investor | Advisor | Positioning Nerd

Have you heard of the Feedback paradox?

It’s real.
You probably experienced it these past few days.

So… what is it?

It’s two simple things:

1️⃣ Send draft: no comments.
2️⃣ Publish draft: everyone has comments.

“I hate interviews.
Let’s not make this feel like one.”


That’s how I start every candidate conversation.

Yes yes… it throws people off.

But hey, here’s the truth:

- You don’t want candidates following a script. Just plain honesty and authenticity.

- Posting VP+ roles is broken
(3,000 résumés for one role = a waste of everyone’s time).

- “Dream jobs” don’t exist. (I tell candidates that upfront.)

So how do you actually spot world-class marketers?


You can tell in 30 seconds—if you know what to look for.

I unpacked this with my buddy 🤫 Andy Mowat on his How I Hire podcast with Whispered. 

We got into:
→ My create/capture/convert framework for building teams
→ Why PMM + brand can’t be outsourced
→ The riskiest bet I ever took (hint: I left a public VP role for a 3-person startup team)

If you’re hiring senior talent, or thinking about your next move, this one might surprise you.


🎧 Listen link in the comments

No alternative text description for this image

Vendor: AI-powered.

Analyst: AI-powered.

Founder: AI-powered.

Reporter: AI-powered.

Board deck: AI-powered.

Customer:
“So… what does it actually do?”

Until 2019, I was a crowd pleaser.
Then something happened.

I was at Salesforce, presenting a Dreamforce idea to the CMO’s staff.

I struggled. Tried to gain consensus. Looked around the room… 20+ people. All of them very senior, and above me. 

And it hit me: there’s no way I’m pleasing all of them.

Any group of 7+ people will always have conflicting agendas, opinions, reactions. By design, someone won’t like what you say. And that’s fine.

Because trying to please everyone means you’ll convince no one.

So I stood by my idea. Pitched it again, harder. Then turned to the CMO and asked what she thought.

That’s what we went with for the keynote.

⸻

I’m sure I ruffled feathers. It didn’t matter.

That day I learned: pleasing-people ideas are bland.

It’s not about consensus.
It’s about belief.

Don’t care what people think of you.
Care about what they think of 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮.

I’m hiring this guy for my next naming project.

I don’t care if he is not a PMM.

He owns a liquor store in Monterey, open late, and, you know how it’s called?

It’s called: “Pour Decisions Liquors”.

Genius.

Three days in France.

Croissants: 9. Strategy decks: 3. Wi-Fi cuts during work calls: 2.

Cordial homepage refresh: shipped. Content plan: finalized. Grocery run for my parents: also shipped.

The digital nomad dream is alive and well.

Some drafts get finalized, and others stay with you, unfinished, across borders.

There are signs.


If you pay attention, you know what your manager wants. What your stakeholders are really asking.

Just listen closely to the *questions* they’re throwing your way.

Behind each one is an intention.

For example:

👉 When your CEO asks, “Are we seeing more inbound from strategic accounts lately?”

They’re not just making conversation. They want to know if your positioning is cutting through, and if you're finally punching above your weight.


👉 When your CCO says, “Do we have anything new we could share with this customer?”

They're not asking for a brochure.They want a reason to re-engage. A story. A spark that could turn a plateaued account into a champion.


👉 When Product asks, “Do you think people will get this?”

It's not about comprehension… It's about resonance. They're quietly wondering: Does this deserve attention?


👉 When Sales says, “Any slides I can steal for this deck?”

It's not just about design. They're looking for a way to tell a bigger story, one that elevates the deal and reframes the value.


- - -


These questions don’t always sound urgent.

But they are.

They’re signals. Embedded asks.

If you can hear what’s beneath them:
You stop reacting.
You start anticipating.

And that’s when you become indispensable.

Only in Paris can you find a restaurant called…


“EAT AND GTFO”

… and it’s full.

Would you rather spend three months building an ROI calculator…


or spend three months explaining to sales how to use it?

😂

I’m happy to share that…

…I’m joining the thousands of people who find the LinkedIn badges absolutely disgraceful. LOL

Denial is defeat.
I remember…

At Salesforce: “early traction” meant no traction.
At Gong: “competitor noise” meant real competition.
At Clari: “deal slippage” meant pipeline gaps.

You can’t fix what you won’t face.

Hard truths are uncomfortable.
But the cost of denial is always higher.

I sometimes think that if I wasn’t French,
I’d like to be…


… Parisian.

It’s Friday.

I’m so tired…

…i
…just
…keep
…hitting
…enter

Marketers, we made it.
Barely.

It's less about how a vendor increased their return on investment and more about personal stories.

We've been thinking about customer evidence all wrong. Instead of leading with "400% ROI increase," we should be sharing stories about how someone in their exact role solved the same problem they're facing.

Think: "Before using this tool, I was stuck doing tedious, manual work. Now, I have my Sunday evenings back with my kids" or "I finally got the visibility I needed to get promoted."

Personal, human-centered stories resonate more than company metrics. Buyers don't just want to know your product works—they want to see themselves in the story.

This shift toward authentic, personal proof was a key finding in recent research I contributed to. Proud to be part of The Evidence Gap 2025 report from UserEvidence, exploring how buyer trust is evolving.

Grab the report—link is in the comments. 👇

Most launches fail, but not because of what you think.


They fail because the logic eats itself:

– You need alignment to launch
– You need clarity to get alignment
– You need the launch to get clarity

Where do you like to start?

AI helps us build…


 c̶o̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶


 confidence.

 clarity.

 conviction.


Your turn…

Taplio

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