127: Inside the Golden Triangle of Product, Brand, and Demand - with Surbhi Agarwal, 25+ Year Tech Executive | REPLAY EP 76

Originally published on August 26, 2024

This replay features the wonderful Surbhi Agarwal, 25+ year industry vet and former CMO at Applied Intuition. We talked about her path from engineering to product marketing to the CMO seat, what really changes when you leave companies like Intel and Google for a fast moving startup, and why she builds marketing around trust, clarity, and collaboration.

Surbhi’s story as an immigrant navigating visa setbacks, rebuilding her career across three countries, and eventually helping grow a business to 10M ARR is powerful. Her honesty about leadership, resilience, and finding your voice as a woman in B2B has stuck with me ever since.

- Jane

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In this episode of Women in B2B Marketing, host Jane Serra sits down with Surbhi Agarwal, 25+ year tech exec. Surbhi shares how she went from engineering and sales into product, then product marketing, and into the CMO role, and why she still thinks like a product marketer every single day.

This episode covers:

• Surbhi’s path from electrical engineer in India to CMO in Silicon Valley
• What she learned moving from Intel and Google to a messy, fast paced startup
• Why she believes product marketing is the strategic core of marketing, not a “support” function
• Her “golden triangle” model connecting product marketing, demand generation, and brand
• How she reorganized a 70 person global marketing team, broke down silos, and cut spend while improving performance
• The difference between running marketing in a hardware world where failure is not an option and in a software world where shipping at 80 percent is the norm
• How she uses OKRs, RACI, and skip level conversations to create clarity and psychological safety
• The early career visa setback that forced her to move back to India, then to London, Taiwan, and France, and how that built resilience and a deep customer mindset
• Her “full glass of trust” philosophy and how she builds collaborative, high trust teams across cultures and time zones
• Why she tells younger women to stop assuming men and women are treated the same at work, and to find their voice and negotiate earlier

Surbhi also shares the kind of honest advice we do not hear enough in leadership circles, including why waiting quietly to be rewarded rarely works, and how women can navigate ambition inside systems that are still far from equal.

Key Links

Guest: Surbhi Agarwal, 25+ year Tech Executive/ CMO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/surbhiagarwal/

Host: Jane Serra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janeserra/