In this episode
Rafael “Rafa” Flores, Chief Product and Growth Officer at Treasure AI, explains why a company that spent close to fifteen years building customer data infrastructure rebranded from Treasure Data on April 20 and rebuilt itself as an agentic experience platform — CDP still underneath, with decisioning and activation layers added on top and Treasure AI Studio orchestrating the whole thing. The through-line is a problem Flores says went unsolved for over a decade: CDPs power the ESPs and marketing automation systems that generate revenue, but buyers could never attribute a dollar back to them. This conversation opens a four-part series with the Treasure AI product team covering the vision, the roadmap, the operational reality, and the design.
Key takeaways
- The rebrand was a product decision, not a naming exercise. Treasure Data became Treasure AI on April 20 after close to fifteen years, adding a decisioning layer and an activation layer above the existing CDP, with Treasure AI Studio as the orchestration brain.
- The CDP’s structural weakness was attribution, not capability. Flores says CDPs power the ESPs and marketing automation systems that drive campaigns, but sit one layer back from activation — so buyers could never put a number on an expensive foundational system.
- Adding activation is how the attribution problem gets solved. The Engagement AI suite brings omnichannel orchestration, journey orchestration, and UTM tracking inside the platform so revenue impact can be traced directly.
- Fifteen years of data infrastructure is the moat, not the baggage. Flores argues warehouse-native entrants have to solve real-time — historically the crux for data warehouses — before they reach where CDP-native platforms already operate.
- Databricks entering the CDP category validates the direction rather than threatening it. Customers already run Treasure AI alongside Databricks and Snowflake, so coexistence is a customer requirement, not a strategic choice.
- CDP deployment has collapsed from months to weeks. Flores says a use case can now go live in roughly two weeks, where it previously took months or, for some companies, years — with policy and governance now the pacing constraint rather than data cleanup.
- Slow data operations cost real campaigns. When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, banks with CDPs reached their customers the same day; one bank without that capability was still manually pulling and uploading sheets two days later and was blocked by regulators before its first send.
- AI resistance sits in the middle of the org, not the top. Flores describes CMOs and C-suites pushing AI down while mid-management slows it, out of fear that the push is a prelude to headcount cuts.
- The CMO role evolves rather than disappears. With tenure at roughly eighteen months and the pipeline number unchanged, Flores’ argument is that always-on marketing infrastructure frees the CMO toward creative work rather than eliminating the seat.
- “Show it to me now” is the buyer’s best vendor test. If a vendor needs time to assemble a demo, Flores says they don’t have the product; Treasure AI Studio is live on the website with sample or uploaded data.
- The platform is built for two user types at once. A growth marketer deploying a campaign and a data engineer tracing a broken pipeline both work through the same AI layer.
- Agility, in practice, is a protected thinking block. Flores’ own routine: the second coffee of the day, laptop closed and monitors off, in front of a whiteboard — one thing made a point better each day.
Chapters
- 0:00 — From storing customer data to deciding and acting
- 2:44 — Rafa Flores, Chief Product and Growth Officer at Treasure AI
- 4:08 — Treasure Data → Treasure AI: what the April 20 rebrand changed
- 6:40 — The moment storage stopped being the value
- 8:24 — Making a CDP’s revenue contribution attributable
- 11:28 — The CMO’s double bind: deploy AI, still hit the number
- 14:01 — Why the CMO role evolves instead of disappearing
- 14:55 — Building a product org: make it fun, make the direction clear
- 19:10 — An all-female VP of product bench
- 21:46 — Treasure AI Studio: “show it to me now”
- 24:34 — Deployment in days, and the Silicon Valley Bank lesson
- 27:19 — Databricks Customer Link: validation and a new competitor
- 29:25 — Portland Thorns and Fire, and what’s coming at Agentic World
- 31:14 — Staying agile: the second cup of coffee
Why a CDP had to stop being a place where data lives
For roughly a decade the category’s job description was storage and segmentation: bring every signal into one location, build the best possible audiences, and push them out to the rest of the martech stack. Flores describes that as work Treasure Data did well and invested in continuously — and as work that stopped being sufficient once customers started asking for AI decisioning and activation in the same system. His framing of the pivot is a repeat of an earlier one: the same way data management and analytics became the CDP space around 2013, the CDP is now becoming something larger, and the term itself no longer covers it.
The attribution problem that made the category vulnerable
Flores’ account of why he left the category and came back centers on one unresolved question: what is the true value of a CDP? His answer is that CDPs are simultaneously powerful and hard to defend at renewal, because they sit behind the systems that visibly generate revenue. They power the ESP. They power marketing automation. They drive the next campaign. But historically the revenue got attributed to the layer above, and the CDP carried the cost line without the credit. Adding orchestration and UTM-level tracking inside the platform is his direct answer to that — not a feature expansion so much as an attempt to make the category’s contribution legible.
What actually changes when deployment takes two weeks
The historical objection to CDPs was implementation drag: months of fixing data, cleaning it, chasing broken pipelines. Flores says AI infusion removes much of that, bringing a live use case into a two-week window with governance and policy — not data quality — as the remaining gate. He extends the same logic to operations: a data engineer can ask an agent to identify the broken source in a pipeline and return the metadata, closing an investigation in an hour rather than days. His framing of why that matters is blunt: days spent investigating are days losing money.
The Silicon Valley Bank story, and what it costs to be slow
Flores’ clearest illustration of speed as a business capability comes from a bank he spoke with after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Institutions with a CDP were able to reach their customers the same day. This bank had no way to operationalize it, so its team pulled sheets and uploaded them manually. By the time the first nurture email was ready to go, the US government had intervened to stop the outreach, and the window had closed. Two days of manual work equated to a missed moment that no amount of subsequent capability could recover.
Where the CMO role is actually going
Flores describes a genuine squeeze rather than a straightforward mandate. Investors want AI deployed. CEOs want AI deployed. The CMO wants it too, for the operational efficiency. But the resistance he sees isn’t at the top — it’s in mid-management, where people slow adoption because they read the push from above as a plan to replace them. His position on the “is the CMO role gone” question is that the number doesn’t change: top-of-funnel pipeline plus down-funnel sales support. What changes is that always-on infrastructure absorbs the mechanical work and returns creative range to the role.
Building the team that ships this fast
Asked about operating culture, Flores gives two requirements: make the work fun, and give very clear direction. He credits a leadership bench that executes independently while he is traveling — VP of product management Kristen Zhou, chief of staff and VP of product operations Michelle Morrison, and VP of product design and head of creative Kaori Ikezoe-Shino, alongside a brand lead, an SEO lead, and a competitive lead. His argument about AI and human skill runs against the usual framing: the more AI is in the mix, the more human-in-the-loop capability becomes the differentiator, not less.
FAQ
What is an agentic experience platform, and how is it different from a CDP? Flores describes it as the CDP retained underneath — centralized data, segments, audiences — with a decisioning layer and an activation layer added on top and an orchestration product, Treasure AI Studio, coordinating end to end. The distinction is that the system acts on customer data rather than only storing and segmenting it.
Why did Treasure Data rebrand to Treasure AI? The rebrand took effect April 20, after close to fifteen years under the Treasure Data name. Flores frames it as the same kind of category shift the company made around 2013, when data management and analytics became the CDP space: customers wanted AI decisioning and activation, and “CDP” no longer described the product.
Does Databricks entering the CDP market change Treasure AI’s strategy? Flores says it validates the direction and introduces a new competitor at the same time. Because customers already run Treasure AI alongside Databricks and Snowflake, the companies have to work together regardless. His competitive view is that warehouse-native entrants must still solve real time, which he identifies as the long-standing crux for data warehouses.
How long does it take to deploy a CDP now? Flores says a use case can be live in about two weeks, versus the months or years it historically took, with policy alignment and governance rather than data cleanup as the pacing constraint.
How should a marketing leader evaluate an “agentic” vendor claim? Flores’ test is immediacy: ask to see it and touch it on the spot. If the vendor needs to assemble a demo, or shows a prototype on render, they don’t have the product. He points to Treasure AI Studio being available directly on the website, with sample or uploaded data, as the standard he holds his own company to.
What does staying agile look like day to day for Flores? An early daily gym session, and a protected thinking block on the second coffee of the day — laptop closed, monitors off, in front of a whiteboard — with the goal of making one thing a point better the following day. He also argues that not every ball is mission critical, and that it’s acceptable to let some drop.
About Rafael Flores
As a proud immigrant from Honduras, Rafael’s journey is rooted in three core values passed down from his family: the power of education, treating everyone with dignity—no matter their background—and lifting up the next generation. Once he was an wide-eyed kid with big dreams, and today, he’s living them. He’s dedicated his career to scaling SaaS companies from startup spark to high-growth success. At Meltwater, he played a key role in driving product innovation and market readiness that led to a successful IPO. At Datanyze, he led strategic initiatives that culminated in an acquisition by ZoomInfo—boosting their data intelligence footprint. At ARM, he spearheaded innovation in Retail SDK and IoT, opening new frontiers in connected experiences. And at 6sense, he led all automation, data, and AI-powered products, building inclusive teams and solutions that empower GTM leaders to sell smarter. At Treasure Data, he helped orchestrate a landmark $600M acquisition by ARM and secured record-breaking funding for the Customer Data Platform. Now, he’s back—leading Treasure Data into a new era of intelligence and automation built for scale. It’s more than a comeback; it’s a homecoming. This is a team he deeply believes in—brilliant, driven, and purposeful. Beyond tech, he’s a devoted father of three and married to a registered nurse whose compassion and strength inspires him every day. My expertise lies in product strategy, CDPs, data privacy, and scaling GTM solutions—from agile startups to Global 2000 enterprises. He’s passionate about solving hard problems with technology, driving sustainable growth, and mentoring rising product leaders. As a member of the Forbes Technology Council, he aims to share insights, spark dialogue, and help shape the future of innovation—one conversation, and one leader, at a time.
Resources
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Transcript
[00:01:03] Greg Kihlström: Hi, I’m Greg Kihlström, host of the Agile Brand, and here’s a question for you. For about a decade, a customer data platform’s job was to be the place your customer data lived. What happens to that job when the most valuable thing a system can do goes beyond remembering and evolves to deciding and acting? Agility in a category that’s been declared dead more than once isn’t chasing whatever the market renames itself this quarter. It’s being able to change what your product does without losing the thing your company is actually good at. Today we’re going to talk about what it takes to evolve a category from the inside, specifically why 15 years of data infrastructure turned out to be an advantage rather than baggage to shed, what actually changes in the product and in the company when a system stops solely storing customer data and starts acting on it, and where the line sits between a marketer steering an agent and a system running on its own. This conversation also kicks off a four-part series we’re running this week with the product team at Treasure AI. Four leaders, four vantage points, the vision, the roadmap, the operational reality, and the design. To help me start it off, I’d like to welcome back to the show Rafa Flores, Chief Product and Growth Officer at Treasure AI. Rafa, welcome back to the show.
[00:02:44] Rafael Flores: I’m excited to be back. I think we had too much fun the first go around, so why not make it a two? Hopefully three.
[laughs]
[00:02:50] Greg Kihlström: I know. I know. Love it. Yeah. Always, always great chatting with you. So yeah. And, and before we dive in, you know, for those that didn’t catch our last conversation, why don’t you give a little background on yourself and your role at Treasure AI?
[00:03:03] Rafael Flores: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So name is r- name is Rafael, call me Rafa, Rafa Flores. I’m the Chief Product and Growth Officer at Treasure AI. I’ve been doing product for my entire career besides a quick stint as an engineering recruiter when I first started out of, out of my degrees. love what I do, love to build, love to build fast now, faster than I ever have, and so very excited to hopefully chat and, and give some, thought leadership today. I like to talk about the person too, so for those who have seen the previous clip, I do speak of the person. And so I am a father, I am a husband, I am a son. I have four little ones, married to an RN, and, a- and life is hectic at work, at, on the go, and at home. So it’s keeps me on my toes, I like to say.
[00:03:45] Greg Kihlström: Right. Right. Yeah, always, al- there’s always something,
[laughs] right? So yeah.
[00:03:48] Rafael Flores: Oh, yeah. There’s always a kid awake, and there’s always a task waiting for you.
[00:03:52] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, absolutely. And, also for, for anybody in the audience that’s maybe been following the, the overall category but hasn’t looked closely lately, can you talk a little bit about, you know, where, where is Treasure AI today? Who’s it built for? You know, tell us a little bit about the recent journey.
[00:04:08] Rafael Flores: Yeah. So let’s talk about the elephant in the room, CDPs, right? Where are CDPs going?
[00:04:12] Rafael Flores: What is a CDP for those that don’t know? And so I, I think the best way to put it is to talk about just the history of Treasure AI, right? we just went through a major rebrand on April 20th. We became Treasure AI. We were formerly known as Treasure Data for close to 14 and almost 15 years. but when we, when we started, the company, it was data management service analytics. It was back in, obviously the early, starts of data warehousing and whatnot and, and trying to activate the layer, right?
[00:04:40] Greg Kihlström: Mm-hmm.
[00:04:41] Rafael Flores: And, we did that very well, and then we realized that the market was going towards the marketer, right? They… the, the marketers, the CMOs were the ones asking for insights so they can actually operationalize-
[00:04:52] Greg Kihlström: Mm
[00:04:52] Rafael Flores: … their budgets and, and run their marketing programs. And so with that, we pivoted, and we were one of, if not, we like to say we were the first ones, but I think everyone can argue, right? It’s like different countries. They all like to argue who had the first-
[00:05:04] Rafael Flores: … dish. but we were definitely one of the first ones to go and, and, and start the, the movement of CDPs and the need for it for the marketer or the business user, right? And bridging the gap between the two. And so for a long time, we were a CDP, and the core functionality of a CDP is we allow you to bring all your insights into one centralized location.
[00:05:20] Rafael Flores: You can build your best possible segments, AKA your audiences, right? Or sometimes referred to as your profile sets, to then be able to actually go and power everything around you, right? The, the rest of your MarTech stack. And so that’s what we had done historically for a long time, and, and we decided to change that, right? So it… we decided to go and, and, and we, we spoke with a lot of our customers. We saw the market, change and, and we realized, hey, you know what? Just how we realized back in 2013 that data management service and analytics was becoming the, the customer data platform space. People want more. They want AI decisioning. They want to activate. And so with that, we don’t think the term CDP is enough, right? And we didn’t think CDP as a product alone was enough. And so we decided to rethink, re-whiteboard, and we put together the agentic experience platform. Right? And that is what TreasureAI is today. We, we offer the best in class CDP underneath the hood still, right? That has not changed. We continue to invest in that. But we added the decisioning layer and the activation layer at the top, and the true brain, which is our TreasureAI Studio product, to orchestrate this whole thing end to end. And so, so that’s where we sit today. and for those who don’t know the brand, we power a lot of Global 2000 brands across, right? From, from the The Edges, Take-Two Interactive, Nordstrom, you name it, across different verticals. Um- 600 strong, across global offices. So a fun group.
[00:06:40] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, t- talking a little bit about the, the, the shift to, from storing data solely, obviously, you know, CDP is a core, is a core part of the, of the platform still. You know, what, what was the… What was going on, what was the moment you kinda realized that the, the customer data storage was, wasn’t y- all there was to, to kind of explore with this platform, that TreasureAI needed to become that action layer as well?
[00:07:08] Rafael Flores: Yeah, so it, it’s, it’s a good question. There’s so many angles I could take it. I, I think I’ll, I’ll tell you for me, right? And so I am a boomerang at the company. I was here for seven years. I left for three, and I came back about a year and a half ago, believe it or not. The, the time just has flown by.
[laughs]
[00:07:23] Greg Kihlström: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I know. It feels like, yeah,
[laughs] it seems like yesterday.
[00:07:26] Rafael Flores: Feels like yesterday, right?
[00:07:27] Rafael Flores: But no, it’s been a year and a half. And, a- and the reason I came back is i- in a way because of your question, right? I did CDPs for a long time. I know CDPs inside and out. I built them from the ground up.
[00:07:40] Rafael Flores: And it was always a question around what is the value? What is the true value of a CDP, right? Because unfortunately, CDPs sit at this kinda crossroads where they’re so powerful, and they can really make a difference in your business, attainment, right, in terms of revenue attainment. But people don’t see it that way because they can’attribute it to the actual activation piece, or historically they wouldn’t be able to, right? Because the CDPs are what power your ESPs. They are what power your market automation systems and drive your next campaign, but they’re the foundational piece. So how do you put a number to that? And they’re expensive, right? And so I saw that challenge for so many years, and then as I was debating coming back or not and take the, the seat again, it was still the same question.
[laughs]
[00:08:24] Rafael Flores: Like, here we are almost 15 years later, or at the time, you know, I guess 13 and a half years later, and it was still the, the same question. And so, so at that point I realized, hey, you know what? Either A, we could sit here and be part of potentially a decelerating market over time, right? Or we can actually solve the problem, which is people want more out of a CDP. They want to be able to attribute dollars back to it, right? And so, so that was the start of it, and then that’s when we added, for example, our Engagement AI suite, right? Omnichannel orchestration, so you can do a nurture campaign out, you can put it in a journey orchestration, right? So you can map it out and see the full journey end to end a- and, and have UTM tracking so you can actually attribute direct revenue impact, right?
[00:09:05] Rafael Flores: And so at that point, that’s how I realized it and, and, you know, that’s a couple of things that we’ve done. But you’re seeing that in the market today, how that’s validating, right? It’s no secret. It’s the big, not elephant in the room anymore. Databricks announced that they’re going the CDP route too, but they’ve been historically just a data warehouse. And their CDP today is very early stages, but it’s, it’s trying to go the marketer route, and over time they’re gonna have to realize that you also have to have the activation layer as a next step, right? And so, to me it was a no-brainer to do it, right? And, and with AI tooling underneath the hood, we can build so fast that why not do it and, and give people what they really need?
[00:11:28] Greg Kihlström: I think you touched on this a little bit, but I mean, y- from, so from a, from a platform perspective and a capability perspective, makes, makes perfect sense. There’s also the story of the marketer’s job itself or their role, right? It’s like, so what’s, what have you seen happen to the expectations on, you know, everybody from the CMO on down that also makes this make sense?
[00:11:53] Rafael Flores: Totally. Well, you can’t ignore AI
[00:11:56] Greg Kihlström: Right, right. [laughs]
[00:11:57] Rafael Flores: I- into this answer, right? Because I think when you look at pressure points… So for me as a growth officer, right, I mean, which is, obviously new, we, we have Streamline and you’re seeing this across the market.
[00:12:07] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:12:07] Rafael Flores: But if I put myself in my just CMO role, I think there’s a pressure point that’s new, right? Which is every investor wants you to deploy AI Every CEO is gonna want you to deploy AI. You want to deploy AI ’cause you know it can lead to operational efficiency and just move faster, right?
[00:12:24] Rafael Flores: How do you do it?
[laughs]
[00:12:26] Rafael Flores: How do you do it also with dealing with the other pressure point, which is obviously people don’t talk about it, I love to talk about it by the way, which is people are scared of AI, right?
[00:12:34] Rafael Flores: And you’re seeing a lot of CMOs and C-suite trying to push AI from the top to the bottom. But at the mid tier, mid-management down, people slow it down because they’re scared that upper management is just coming in to fire them over time.
[00:12:46] Rafael Flores: Right? And so, so you’re seeing all this pressure points, but at the end of the day what I tell folks is, “Your number is still your number,” right? As a CMO, you need to drive very top-of-funnel pipeline, and then you need to support sales efforts, right, in, in certain areas as you go down funnel. Now they have to go and prospect, right? It’s no-brainer. But you have to support both. So you, so you have this pressure point of you still have to hit your numbers. And again, to hit numbers, what better way than to use a system that allows you to have all the signals you need, allows you to have on-marketing 24/7, allows you to get the messaging out without having to rely on one API to the next or one-
[00:13:25] Greg Kihlström: Mm-hmm
[00:13:26] Rafael Flores: … MCP server to the next, right? It still takes time.
[00:13:29] Rafael Flores: And if you can do that in real time, which is a big differentiator of ours, we do things in real time, and truly real time, right, like you land and it’s fully optimized based on the latest signal. That, that to me is a no-brainer, right?
[00:13:41] Greg Kihlström: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:41] Rafael Flores: Like, you need something along those lines. And I’m not trying to pitch a product like you need to buy our product, I’m just saying in your stack you need that core brain and muscle to hit those numbers. Because otherwise what’s gonna happen, and what I’m seeing in, in the market, is the tenure of a CMO is short, right? And it’s it’s 18 months typically.
[00:14:01] Rafael Flores: And now with AI you’re seeing the role of the CMO disappearing. Where there’s articles being published, “Hey, is the role of the CMO gone,” right?
[00:14:08] Rafael Flores: I don’t think it’s gone if you’re a CMO and you’re smart about it, and you go and put the brain and the muscle in the right place, and have always-on marketing. Then it’s not that your role is gone, it’s just your role has evolved, and now you can actually focus on more fun stuff like being creative, right? Nobody talks about the art of the chief creative officers. You have so much more power now. So I think the role of a CMO, if you put the right brain and muscle in the right place, you actually have a new role which is, yes, you still need to drive pipeline and down-funnel conversion support, but you have a, a, a new art, which is you can go be as creative as you ever dreamed of, and that’s the fun part. That, that is the fun part that I love the most, by the way. I can throw any crazy idea, bounce it off my teams, and they just put together product sizzle videos, and it’s just fascinating to see that.
[00:14:55] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I, that’s probably a good segue to the next thing I wanted to talk about. And, you know, one of the things I love about my, my job is I get to meet– You know, I get to see the platforms and everything like that too, but I also get to meet the teams behind the platforms. And so it’s, you know, it’s fascinating to me to go… You know, I go to, I don’t go to all the shows, but I go to many of the shows and, and get to meet the exec teams and product teams. And there’s a, there’s a different culture at different companies, and I haven’t done a formal mapping of, you know, how, how these things actually translate to product, you know, output, but it’s definitely, I think it’s a strong point to consider the teams building products and, and how that differentiates. Because, you know, I think to your earlier point, the human component of this
[00:15:40] Greg Kihlström: cannot be downplayed as well. So I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, just how, how Treasury AI approaches that. And so, you know, as, as chief product and global, growth officer at, at Treasury AI, you know, how would you describe the, the operating culture?
[00:15:56] Rafael Flores: Yeah. Culture, it’s the most important thing, right? I, I, I always tell folks I- I’m, I’m terrible at many things, but I think I’m good at a, a- at a few. But the few kind of make it worth the while,
[laughs] right?
[00:16:09] Greg Kihlström: [laughs]
[00:16:09] Rafael Flores: or at least I hope so. But you have to have two things for, for people to really just be all in, right? You have to make it fun for them, and you have to have very clear direction. to do that you need people around you who will see the direction, right, and see the vision. And I get it, right? There’s this different incentive. Some people are more, “I need money now,” some people are more, “I know how much of this multiple goes tenfold where my money will come from,” right, and how much it could be. You need to find those type of people, right? And oftentimes you’ve worked with them in the past. I’ve, I’ve had the luxury of working with some great talent. I did bring some, you know? I– My VP-
[00:16:46] Rafael Flores: … of product management, Kristen Zhou, she’s fantastic. She builds fast. She’s very independent, and she’s just a thinker, right, and, and a doer. Michelle Morrison, chief of staff, VP of product operations, she allows us to launch plan, right, and make sure that we can do things that historically operations will be against. But she sees the why, right, and she understands it. Kaori, Ikezoe-Shino, she’s our VP of product design and, and head of creative. Pushing her to think differently, right? And, and I’m a big fan of proposing that UX design is more than UX design in the product. It’s the brand, right? And I’ve consolidated that under her because I need to tell a story at the end of the day, right, and, and, and take the company to be a lifestyle brand. If you can have a lifestyle brand in the best of tech, there’s no
[00:17:31] Rafael Flores: better way. And so, so I’ve been very fortunate to build a team with them and have them work very well together and, and very independently. I, I’m not very good on, on, one-on-one time to be quite honest, ’cause I’m always on a plane, right, going to the next destination, and I, I just don’t have a lot of time. So I, I do a lot of group meetings and, and I have a rule, “Hey, if you need me, I’ll make myself available. Just call me or text me.” Um-
[00:17:53] Rafael Flores: … ’cause it’s likely the best way to get ahold of me. But they just do it so well with grace. fantastic rock stars, right? And so having the right team is so important. And, and I’ll tell you this, AI is here to stay. It’s not going away, right? You can make arguments around the, the cost of models and all these things, but-
[00:18:13] Rafael Flores: … at the end of the day it’s just regardless of that, AI is in the mix. That only actually surfaces the human skills more than ever, right? And so having the right team around you that have the proper human-in-the-loop skill set, like some of the examples of folks I gave you, that’s what will make the difference, right? If people can have that in place, see the vision, execute with you, believe in what you’re saying, right, do it independently ’cause you’re moving so fast, you will have fun. Yes, it’ll be stressful at times-
[laughs]
[00:18:45] Rafael Flores: … but the outcome will be rewarding, right? And that’s what I believe in.
[00:18:49] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, another thing just, I would say atypical in, in the industry certainly, you know, every VP of product on, on your team is a woman, which is certainly you know, not, not the norm in, in the industry, so, you know, pretty, pretty amazing there. You know, how do… wh- what do you think that says about how you build product?
[00:19:10] Rafael Flores: Yeah, I mean, it, it’s funny how it all worked out, but yeah, my VP of product management, VP of ops and chief of staff, VP of product design, they’re, they’re all female, right? And they’re very strong leaders. their team’s highly respected by their teams. Did I plan it? No.
[laughs]
[laughs]
[00:19:24] Rafael Flores: Right? It just kinda worked out that way. I have some folks who are male on my team, right, like Dustin Aaron, he’s the head of brand, and, and Nick, he’s head of SEO. Dave does competitive. but a big percentage is, is female, right? And, I’ll tell you this, it, it’s a perfect blend, right? It’s a perfect blend. They, they’re big believers, right? They, they, again, they’re, they’re doers and thinkers at the same time, which is rare. Usually you’re good at one or the other. so they’re a very good breed, but I, I, I will tell you from my own experience in working with them and having very senior female leaders around me or reporting to me, when the going gets tough and it’s very stressful, there’s always that nurturing side that comes out of them, right? And, and people think just because you’re in
[00:20:09] Rafael Flores: C-suite, you’re always untouchable and, and powerful, right? That’s not the case. Sometimes you are in C-suite and you sit at an airport at 3:00 in the morning all by yourself with no food, right? You just been on three-hour taxi ride. You went in meetings all day, and you, you’re there by yourself.
[00:20:24] Rafael Flores: And just getting that text message sometimes from Michelle, right, like, “Hey, Raf, are, are you okay? I know you’re traveling. Are, do you need anything?” Right? Even though she’s halfway across the globe, that’s so soothing, right? And so I love that element of having so- some, you know, obviously female leaders on my team. It’s that nurturing side. People always… and, and this is not to get controversial, but people always try to separate, well, you can’t succeed and be nurturing and, and, and, or be a woman in power. Absolutely not. You can bring the best of both worlds, and I see it with those examples, and I know you’re chatting with some of them at some point and-
[00:20:58] Rafael Flores: … you’re gonna love those conversations ’cause you’re gonna see it. You can be nurturing. You can be successful. You can, you know, be a, a, a very thoughtful leader and, and, and lead teams, right? Those can come together very well.
[00:21:46] Greg Kihlström:
[gentle music] As we kinda wrap up here, I’ll talk about a few things, and so Treasure AI Studio was a recent, product launch. I know, you know, I got, I got a little, little peek at that myself.
[00:23:01] Rafael Flores: You got a sneak peek.
[laughs]
[00:23:02] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, yeah. Do… you know, very, very cool stuff. so, you know, I wanna… certainly, you know, the industry, there’s a lot of focus on agentic and ag- you know, market- MarTech, a lot of agentic marketing platforms out there. Again, a differentiator, I think, for, for Treasure AI is certainly that CDP foundation. W- where do you see with, you know, there’s other platforms that are kinda starting out on, on the agentic side and maybe having to figure out the, the data component. You know, what, why did starting with the CDP make a lot of sense from, from your standpoint?
[00:23:41] Rafael Flores: Yeah, yeah. Good question. I think with AI, the competitive differentiator for us right now, especially with Treasure AI Studio, is you can even try it on the website. If you land on our website, you can try it, right? And, and I always tell folks, if you’re a CMO or a CBO, if somebody tells you, “Well, everyone’s gonna tell you they have AI,” right?
[laughs]
[00:23:59] Rafael Flores: It’s just reality. But my answer when I get vendors reach out is like, “Okay, show it to me. Like, show it to me now.” If I’m at a conference and you say, “Hey, we have this agentic X type of platform,” okay, I wanna see it. I wanna touch it.
[00:24:10] Rafael Flores: And a lot of times they’re gonna say, “Well, wait a minute. We need to put a demo together.” That means they don’t have it, right?
[00:24:16] Rafael Flores: Or they will show you something that’s on render, which it’s a prototype. It’s not real. So for me, it’s, I wanted to just put it on the website and say, “Hey, it’s real. It’s credible. You can touch it. You can upload your own data. It’s safe and governed,” or you can, you know, run a, a sample just to get a little bit of taste of what this, if you were to pay for it, could be for your organization. And so-
[00:24:34] Rafael Flores: … going back to your question, right, in terms of AI and differentiators, but also why does it make the most sense to kinda do something like this with CDPs, it’s CDPs have been very tedious to deploy, right?
[00:24:46] Rafael Flores: Now you can actually do it in a very short amount of days, right? I was gonna say hours, but, there’s policies that you also have to follow, right? And you wanna make sure that everyone’s in tune, and governance, et cetera. So it, it takes days. You know, it could take a few weeks. But saying you can deploy a CDP and get a use case up and running in two weeks, it’s unheard of. It, it used to take months-
[00:25:07] Rafael Flores: … sometimes years for some companies, right?
[00:25:10] Rafael Flores: And so … ‘Cause they’re always trying to fix the data. They’re always trying to clean it up. There’s always an issue, a broken data pipeline. And to me, AI infuse just solves so many of those issues, right? And, and for, for us, keep in mind we have two types of users. We have a very technical user base, which are data engineers, right? And we have a very non-technical user, which is a growth marketer, for example. And so AI can help both. Yes, it can help a growth marketer deploy a campaign, but if that campaign, if there’s something broken underneath the hood, if the data engineer can use Treasure AI Studio to go and actually … Or an agent on our foundry and say, “Hey, can you go and tell me what this broken source of this pipeline is so I can go fix it in our data warehouse or whatever system it’s coming from?” Right? “Give me the metadata.
[00:25:55] Rafael Flores: Like, give me everything I need.”
[00:25:57] Rafael Flores: You could fix it top of the hour versus taking days to investigate. Days to investigate here means days you lose money here, right?
[00:26:05] Rafael Flores: And I’ll give you a great example. When the Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, I don’t know if you remember this. well, I’m sure you do, but-
[00:26:12] Greg Kihlström: Yeah, yeah.
[laughs]
[00:26:12] Rafael Flores: … but we, we chatted with one bank who, obviously I can’t disclose their name, but one of the frustration points for them was they said an a- a story to me which is, hey, when this bank collapsed, every bank out there who actually had something like a CDP was able to, on the same day, start bombarding-
[00:26:29] Rafael Flores: … all their consumers, right?
[00:26:31] Rafael Flores: All of their clients.
[00:26:33] Rafael Flores: This bank couldn’t do it because they, they had no way to do it and operationalize it. So they were manually pulling sheets and uploading and guess what? By the time they were ready to send the first nurture email blast out, they were blocked because the US government had come in and said, “Hey, no more,” right?
[00:26:47] Greg Kihlström: Oh.
[00:26:47] Rafael Flores: “You guys are poaching. This is not okay. We need to cool this situation here.”
[00:26:52] Rafael Flores: So they missed the boat.
[00:26:54] Rafael Flores: So just the two days that they took for getting things ready, imagine if they had bombarded a million customers, right, or a million clients, however you wanna go. Missed opportunity. And so-
[00:27:06] Rafael Flores: … AI is powerful. CDPs are powerful. If you bring them together, it’s a dream come true, right? You don’t wanna be that bank that took two days to get nothing done, and then there you have it. You missed-
[00:27:16] Rafael Flores: … you missed an opportunity. You missed the boat.
[00:27:19] Greg Kihlström: Yeah. Yeah. So I wanna get back to, something you brought up earlier as well, the, the Databricks, customer link.
[00:27:26] Greg Kihlström: certainly, you know, lot, lots of chatter about that. The other … Well, still probably a little, but, you know, especially when they announced it. On the one hand, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, you know, the pitch is essentially, you know, the warehouse already holds the data, the governance. Now agents, so, you know, CDP should be a front door on the lake house rather than a second system beside it. You know, does a, does a launch like Databricks’, you know, customer link validate some of the directions you’ve taken, challenge it? You know, where, where … What’s the Treasure AI kinda stance on, on this?
[00:28:01] Rafael Flores: Yeah, yeah. I mean, does it validate the decisions? Of course. It shows you that for them to go and invest in this route, it’s, it’s worth investing into it.
[00:28:09] Greg Kihlström: Right. Right.
[00:28:09] Rafael Flores: There’s a, there’s still a need for it. I think for us from a competitive standpoint, it’s interesting, to be honest with you, right? A lot of our customers use us, they use Databricks, or they use Snowflake, or sometimes they use both of those guys, right?
[00:28:21] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:28:22] Rafael Flores: And so we have to work together, right? Whether they like it or we like it or not.
[00:28:26] Greg Kihlström: Right.
[laughs]
[00:28:26] Rafael Flores: We have to work together because at the end of the day, we are paid to do the job by our customers, and so we have to better serve them. And so, so we have to continue to work together, number one, n- no questions asked.
[00:28:37] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:28:37] Rafael Flores: But of course, it introduces a new competitor. it’s not easy to be a CDP. We’ve been doing it for 15 years. They’ve been great at data warehousing for a long time. And so I think they’re gonna run into the challenges that, hey, you know, doing things like real time, which has been always the crux of data warehouses, well, you have to evolve here to then be where we are, right? But by the time they do that, it is my job to ensure that working with all the folks on my team, we’re already thinking about something completely else, right?
[00:29:03] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:29:03] Rafael Flores: And so that is my big bet now. It’s, it validates the market, it validates a lot of the decisioning to date, but we wanna stay ahead, right? We wanna stay ahead ’cause we’ve been doing this for a long time, and we wanna make sure that we continue to keep a stronghold on it. Work together, right, ’cause our customers demand it.
[00:29:19] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Rafael Flores: But if we can be great at certain things, then we will continue to be great, and w- well, I’ll make sure that we are.
[00:29:25] Greg Kihlström: Yeah. Yeah. Love it. So couple, couple last things as, as we wrap up here. you know, without giving too much away, you know, what’s, what’s coming down the pipeline that, that you’re excited about?
[00:29:36] Rafael Flores: Well, so there’s a couple things, right? We just announced a major partnership. it’s a first time for the company, and honestly, I’ve … I don’t think I’ve seen it from any true CDP, player in the past. But we decided to sponsor the Portland Thorn, Portland Fire. so-
[00:29:49] Greg Kihlström: Nice
[00:29:49] Rafael Flores: … WNBA and WSL, there’s all sorts of deliverables that come with that. But it’s so exciting, right? I was just in Chicago for the WNBA All-Star Weekend, spent time with their ownership group and team president, and a lot of the folks who will be in the room working with us.
[00:30:03] Greg Kihlström: Mm.
[00:30:03] Rafael Flores: And we’re just so excited to, to be a community partner, right? And just have a, have a mission past just, hey, how can we deploy AI, but how can we deploy it for good, right?
[00:30:12] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:30:13] Rafael Flores: I think that’s gonna be fascinating. If you look at the DNA of the team, it fits down our customer profile, right? And, and, and there’s so many things to come there that you’re gonna see, of how we activate our brand. So that’s a big one for us. in terms of the product, we have a couple of things up our sleeve that we definitely will, uh … It will change the way you think of always-on marketers.
[laughs] That’s my teaser to you.
[00:30:37] Greg Kihlström: Right.
[00:30:37] Rafael Flores: you’ll see it at Agentic World, which is in Miami, the 5th through the 7th, and- I- if, you know, for the many folks who are gonna watch this podcast, they’re more than welcome to, to come and sign up. Go to agenticworld.com and, and, and save the spot. It’s, it’s a free conference, right? That’s the beauty of it.
[00:30:52] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:30:53] Rafael Flores: but there’s gonna be so many cool things that are gonna be taking place there that we’re gonna announce. my teams are busy right now just gearing up for those big moments on stage. but it’s gonna be fun. I, I think the, the era of activation plus the era of, AI orchestration at the top, it’s, it’s really coming together for us, so I’m very excited about.
[00:31:14] Greg Kihlström: Nice. Nice. Love it. Well, and last question for you, I might have asked this before, but we’ll, we’ll get a, we’ll get a fresh answer here.
[laughs] What do you do to stay agile in your role, and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
[00:31:26] Rafael Flores: You know what I’ve been doing lately? It, it’s … You always have to be thinking of new ways, new swim lanes, right? I actually go to the gym every day super early, right? And it’s not– It’s, one, it ties to health, right? I’ve had some health history in the past, and so I wanna make sure I can stay healthy for my family and my, my children. but, but, but that’s not enough, right?
[laughs] It, it, the stamina you need now is just tenfold. So something I’ve been doing lately actually is I, I take two cups of coffee a day, and typically I will grab the coffee, come sit here. I’m making it a point for my second cup of coffee in the day, making it a point to come back to my office, close my laptop, monitors are off. I actually unplug everything, right?
[00:32:06] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:32:06] Rafael Flores: And I actually will just think. I, I, I stare at my whiteboard, which is right behind this monitor, and I just think about, okay, what are some things that are top of mind? It could be anything, right? Things I wanna learn, things I wanna fix, things I’m hearing. And if I can take every day one thing and get it the next day to be a point better, I’m doing my job in an agile way, right?
[00:32:27] Greg Kihlström: Yeah.
[00:32:27] Rafael Flores: And I highly recommend. I think the, because of the speed of things, right, people forget that it’s okay to let some balls drop.
[laughs]
[00:32:37] Rafael Flores: Just don’t tell your boss I said that.
[00:32:38] Greg Kihlström:
[laughs]
[00:32:38] Rafael Flores: But, but it is, right? I mean, not every ball is critical, and I think now everything’s mission critical. And, and I get it, everyone wants to move fast and deliver, but it’s okay to say no. It’s okay to take five minutes and just think, “How can I get this to drive the, the, you know, the train or the bus forward?” I love doing that. I just started doing that about three weeks ago.
And it, it’s so helpful. Even personal life, right? Sometimes you’re like, “Oh, wait, I haven’t taken one of my kids one on one for two months. Oh, my God.” I– So guess what? This weekend, dad’s going to Lego Land, right, and with the one kid. It’s just fascinating. So I highly recommend people do that. Don’t, don’t let the AI noise and everything around you just forget, help make you forget that, hey, you still need those five, 10 minutes a day to just breathe, reconsider, and then be agile in how you fix.
